Intriguing, unusual and historical, The Last Tiger is certainly an interesting read. Set in 1909, in Tasmania, it focuses around a young boy called Myko and the last of Tasmania's tigers. Myko and his family flee from Lithuania after the Russian Czar takes over their farm and their family. Though they think they are heading to a new life in America, they end up in Tasmania instead. Here, tigers are not the beautiful and majestic creatures Myko sees them as. They are pests which must be exterminated. When Myko befriends a tiger at the same time as his father becomes the tiger hunter, a battle between family members brews.
I loved the way the tigers were represented in this book, the way they seemed so mysterious and other-world-like. The book deals with many issues, one of which is equality between men and women, in a way. Myko befriends Tilly, a girl of his own age. Whenever Myko and the other boys are working, Tilly is always told she can't because she is a girl, even though she is taller and stronger than many of the boys. Myko doesn't understand this, and I think this shows his innocence, and that there really is no reason whenever he asks anybody, other than because Tilly is a girl. I enjoyed this aspect of the story.
Though I found the Last Tiger very interesting in both its storytelling and the historical aspect, I couldn't really call it exciting or a page turner. I would recommend it to both girls and boys over the age of 12, as it is quite heavy going at times, and to those who enjoy historical fiction.
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