Guga Detoni Detoni itibaren Zhukovo, Ivanovskaya oblast', Rusko, 155506
This was one of the 2007 RUSA Notable Books winners. For the complete list, go to http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rus...
Different, quirky, and I liked that everything did not turn out perfectly for everyone.
It all started with Assignment Day because in Ember, "first we get our education. Then we serve our city." As a twelve year old, Lina is now in the real world, trying to keep the city running. Her classmate Doon, however, seems to be the only one who acknowledges the fact that they won't be able to just keep it running for very much longer, not doing things they way they have always been done. When Lina's little sister Poppy finds and eats the secret instructions about the city, Lina and Doon realize they have to work hard to figure out how to save the people of the Ember. I think I was expecting more out of this book because everyone was telling me it was so amazing. There were so many moments that I thought the author was going to do something amazing with the text, then I was let down. It was good, just not the best thing I've read recently. I could see this book taught in middle school. The subject isn't too difficult for them to understand, and I really thought it was timely. The issues of the environment not being good enough to support life anymore plays really well with current events (i.e. gas running out on us). The idea that struck me was the fact that everyone in the town besides Doon and Lina just expected someone else to solve the problem for them. We have to take action if we hope to solve these problems. It's a message that we need to send to students.