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Loading... The City of Ember (The First Book of Ember) (edition 2004)by Jeanne DuPrau
Work InformationThe City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau (Author)
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Sometimes you need a YA to cleanse the palate..... ( ) It's a world with no sun, lit only by electricity. But the generator is dying and the citizens of Ember don't know what to do. 12-year-old Lina discovers an ancient document that may be the secret to surviving Ember's decay, but time is running out. This book's a page turner, a mystery, and a thought-provoker. I'm tempted to attribute the dumbed down world building, logic flaws, and flat characters to the fact that this is written as children's literature, but I've read far too many excellent stories in that category to accept that children don't need or deserve better. Much of the ignorance of the people of Ember is explained at the end - that the adults who were chosen to populate that world were under strict orders to not pass on knowledge of the world before, but that just seems like a cop-out to me. Children ask questions, and their caregivers didn't have anyone preventing them from answering after they were dropped off in Ember. There was no satisfactory explanation for why the Builders demanded that their history be erased. In fact, it's nonsensical, if they expected that their descendants would need to emerge from Ember and re-integrate into the outside world some 200 years later. This is just one of the many logical flaws that kept me disengaged from the book. The characters and their relationships with one another had no depth. Lina feels very little grief for her grandmother, and forgets her death almost immediately. She seems to feel very little for her sister except concern when the child wanders off and is lost. When she refuses to leave Ember without her sister later, it seems borne of a sense of responsibility rather than any actual connection. She might as well have been refusing to leave without her only pair of shoes. I finished the story mostly because it was on audio and kept me company while doing some chores around the house, but if I had been actually reading the book, I probably would have put it down halfway through and not picked it up again.
While a book like ''Faerie Wars'' diverts young readers from their daily lives, one like ''The City of Ember'' encourages them to tackle the most ambitious tasks. Hard work can save the day, it promises. It's an old-fashioned lesson that is somehow easier to swallow when delivered in a futuristic setting. Belongs to SeriesBooks of Ember (1) Is contained inCity of Ember: 4 Book Set by Jeanne DuPrau (indirect) Has the adaptationHas as a student's study guideHas as a teacher's guideAwardsNotable Lists
In the year 241, twelve-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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