City of Ember

City of Ember by Jeanne Duprau is probably better known as a movie than as a book. I, for one, have not seen the movie, but read the book as a part of the vocabulary curriculum that I write for our grade level.

The book whisks the reader to an underground world, named the City of Ember. Here, people live their whole lives unaware of any other existence other than dark and dreary life with little hope. 12-year old Doon and Lina have just graduated into "adulthood" by receiving the job assignment they will live with for the rest of their lives. Driven by curiousity, the two kids quickly find themselves in the middle of an adventure they never could have anticipated. The supplies and resources required for the City of Ember are running low, but they just might have stumbled upon the solution.

Duprau writes with wonderful flourish. Working with middle school level writing, Duprau finds few limitations to the creation of an underground dystopia. Ember's society is well thought out, and Duprau carefully addresses all of the problems that a subterranean world would face. I'm sure you could scrutinize it heavily enough and find inaccuracies, but you'd have to dig really deep (yes, I said that on purpose). It's the kind of book that you want to keep on reading and when you get to the end you are left wanting more...in a good way. The ending, by the way, is magical.

I whole-heartedly recommend this book to children ages 10 and up! Adults would likely enjoy reading this book aloud to children possibly as young as 8 and up. There's a lot of great stuff here, although it doesn't quite cross over as an adult read in the same way that the Harry Potter or Chronicles of Narnia books do. Mind you, that will not affect my rating.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

(79/100)