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In ND Stevenson‘s (Nimona (2015), She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018-20)) prose novel debut, Scarlet Morning (2025), Stevenson transports readers to a bizarre world of pirates and queens, mystery and (PG) horror. He also taps into some more everyday anxieties for modern children as his protagonists try to make the best of a broken world.
Growing Up After The End Of The World
The story begins with Viola and Wilmur, children surviving in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where salt has overwhelmed the earth. Their world centers around Dickerson’s Sea, with the rest of the planet having seemingly vanished.1
They were raised by a woman named Hestur (who claimed to be unrelated to the children). She taught them how to live, saying that someone would eventually come back for them. She shared legends of the dastardly pirate Scarlet Morning and how she caused the apocalypse when she killed the beloved Hail Queen Meridian. Hestur also had a mysterious Book, a journal that described the changes the world had undergone, which she said Scarlet Morning was searching for.2
Then, Hestur vanishes one day, so Viola and Wilmur carry on alone. One night, when they’re teenagers, Captain Cadence Chase walks through their door, asking for the Book. Thus, they’re swept off into an adventure where they discover where they belong and solve the mysteries of their world.3
Legend Versus History — When Adults Weaponize Myth
A key component of the story is the distinction between history and myth, and the protagonists learn early on that adults use fiction for various purposes, not all of them sinister. One of the first “myths” we’re introduced to is how Hestur claimed there were ghosts that would come out at night, presumably to ensure that the children returned home before dark. While it served its purpose well when they were young, it’s also the first myth they’re forced to discard when they set out with Captain Chase on her ship, the Calamary Rose.4
However, some of the legends Hestur instilled in them aren’t so benign, nor are they so easily dispelled. The myth of Scarlet Morning, which she eventually presents as “real,” turns out to only be partly true, but Viola clings to it amidst the brave new world in which she finds herself.5
Hestur characterized pirates in general (and Scarlet Morning in particular) as evil, but Viola and Wilmur discover that pirates just seem to be sailors who don’t fit neatly into the standards of the Queen’s Navy. This appears to be a common myth, however, as the Queensmen used the vilification of pirates as an excuse to massacre them after Scarlet Morning’s attack on the queen.6
Meanwhile, Viola discovers gaps in actual history. The Book details everything from strange, magical mutations to the disappearance of words and ideas. No one seems to know how the rest of the world vanished, but there are still books about places beyond Dickerson’s Sea. When “history” is so hard to find, the gaps will inevitably be filled with myth.7
Listening Without Obeying — Adult Voices & Moral Complexity
Stevenson excels in characterizing adults/authority figures with nuance and care, and Captain Chase is a fine example. She takes a liking to Viola, partly due to circumstance, but mostly because she pushes back and questions Chase’s ideas (unlike Wilmur, who is usually content to go with the flow). Viola realizes that Chase is (or was) Scarlet Morning, the one many blame for the current climate catastrophe.8
At one point, Chase and Viola are traveling on their own, and they get to talking about their lives:
“[…] You can do whatever you want, be whoever you want. You don’t know how many people would kill for that . . . a clean slate, to write on however you want.”
“To write what?” said Viola. “I can’t be who I want to be — it’s too late. All the best stories are already over. The world I grew up dreaming about doesn’t exist anymore. […] When I look ahead, I don’t see anything — just white. You had a golden age. All I’ve got is salt.”9
Despite the fact that Chase spends a lot of time explaining the truth behind the legends of Scarlet Morning, and how the “legends” were much different to live through, Viola clings to the belief that things were better in Chase’s day. She resents the adults (and despite her best efforts, Scarlet Morning) for creating the desolate world she inhabits, and can’t imagine how it could get better.10
But Chase encourages Viola to make a life of her own, and in so doing, she finds that there are things she can do to make the world better through hard work. On the other hand, Wilmur grows to realize that he can’t just rely on adults to make decisions for him, as they can be irresponsible and unreliable as well.11
Rewriting The Middle-Grade Formula For A New Generation
After years of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories, even for children (such as Adventure Time (2010-18), and the MCU for that matter), this book fits right in with modern stories. Children in this day and age have experienced hardship, having lived through a global pandemic, in addition to a widespread awareness of (and anxiety about) climate change.12
There was a bit of a boom in middle-grade books in the 2000s, in the wake of the Harry Potter craze. One of the series that stuck out was A Series of Unfortunate Events (1999-2006) (hereafter “ASOUE“), by Daniel Handler under the pen name Lemony Snicket. Unlike in Harry Potter, the protagonists of ASOUE constantly struggled, despite their cleverness, and rarely had a reprieve from their miserable lives, mainly thanks to the adults.
Most of them were mean (or downright evil), and the few kind adults the protagonists met were largely ineffectual and never managed to permanently better the lives of the children.13
One thing that kept readers coming back to ASOUE was the mystery of the conspiracy surrounding the deaths of the protagonists’ parents. Snicket, who is eventually revealed to be a character in the world of the books, would often drop “secret messages” to people in a secret organization within the text of the books. While some mysteries were never meant to be solved, there were others that clever readers could figure out for themselves, such as the identity of Beatrice.14
Similarly, Scarlet Morning features protagonists whose lives are difficult, and adults who are generally ambivalent towards them. In this case, however, the adults are never as simple as “good” and “bad”; one gets the impression that we simply lack the context of their motives. Additionally, in The Book, we get tantalizing hints about the truth of their world, similar to the mysteries in ASOUE. But that’s one area where the book falls short: Unlike in ASOUE, it’s not a fair-play mystery.
We only glimpse a handful of pages, and in addition to elements invisible to the reader (such as a page with pinprick holes), there are some things that the characters know and the reader doesn’t (such as the geography of Dickerson’s Sea). While it may be the result of condensing the story into a single book (or rather, two15), as opposed to a series of thirteen, it will inevitably frustrate some readers.16
The majority of the book is written from Viola’s perspective, although there are several chapters from Wilmur’s POV, too. Viola’s is the more-defined character arc, as she is the primary mover of the plot, but they share a believable sort of brother-sister dynamic, and Stevenson particularly captures the feeling of being stuck with practically nothing to do. Despite that, it’s all engaging and well-paced, such that the four-hundred-plus pages go by breezily.17
The art is mostly just serviceable, but there are a handful of splash pages that really make an impact.
Naturally, there are other ways that the story is updated, such as the casual queer inclusion (and even a magical, if dangerous, form of gender transition). The inclusion of the words “flog” and “cod” in place of certain swear words (or allusions to God) results in some funny lines, in addition to keeping the dialogue clean for young readers.18
Why Scarlet Morning Trusts Its Young Readers
Much like Chase encouraging Viola to make a life of her own and write her own story, Stevenson clearly wants to inspire young readers to pursue their dreams. The dedication reads: “To every kid out there thinking of writing a book — do it.”19
Young readers deserve good books, too, not just content. Scarlet Morning attempts to speak to children where they’re at, and largely succeeds. It tells young readers that they, too, are capable of changing the world, no matter how dire the state of the world may be. It might also spark conversation between parents and children, because part of the point of this narrative is that adults don’t have all the answers, either.
Footnotes
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning, page 176. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Hickman, Caroline et al. “Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey.” The Lancet Planetary Health, Volume 5, Issue 12, 2021. ↩︎
- Snicket, Lemony. A Series of Unfortunate Events. Harper Collins, 1999-2006. ↩︎
- Snicket, Lemony. A Series of Unfortunate Events. Harper Collins, 1999-2006. ↩︎
- Ramirez, Amanda. “Four Questions for ND Stevenson”. Publishers Weekly. 18 September 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎
- Stevenson, ND. Scarlet Morning. Quill Tree Books, 2025. ↩︎