Guest Review by Sian Gaetano: Midwinterblood

by Marcus Sedgwick

Roaring Brook Press | 2013

Get it here.  

Marcus Sedgwick’s newest YA novel revels in the dark, the devious, and the destined. Through a series of seven connected but wholly individual tales, the story travels from the year 2073 into the past of long-ago times unknown.

The work begins with a young man, Eric Seven, taking an investigative trip to Blessed Island, where it is rumored that the inhabitants live forever. Despite this obviously science-fiction beginning, the story moves and changes to incorporate realistic fiction, fantasy, and horror in the seven different tales of Blessed Island. Within this one novel, a reader will find Romeo-and-Juliet-like love, a thirsty vampire, a reenactment of the Cain and Abel tale, magical potions, historical connections to WW II, and a tormented artist.

The chapters are short and the writing style simple, creating a read that is both inviting and dangerous—the reader will find herself desperately moving forward while the staccato rhythm of the writing brings to mind the pounding of ancient war drums. The constantly shifting protagonists make it difficult to catch your breath but, as it becomes clear how beautifully and intimately they’re connected, you might be able to regain your footing. This is a story of blood, and beauty; of death and destiny; of fear, and (finally) of love.

Read this book. And make sure you set some time aside for it because, once you start, you will not stop until those drums silence.  

REVIEWER BIO: Siân Gaetano is, before all else, a reader. She is currently pursuing an M.A. in Children’s Literature at Simmons College (to be finished in  Summer 2013) and working evenings serving the good people of Boston food and beverage. She was an editorial intern at Charlesbridge for the Fall 2012 semester, and is currently an intern at The Horn Book.

The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

by Barry Lyga
Houghton Mifflin | 2006
Buy it here!

Lyga's first novel is truly fantastic. Fanboy is a comic-obsessed geek who is bullied at school. Goth Girl is a troubled recluse who can't stand to see Fanboy treated so terribly. When she chooses him as a friend, the unlikely pair end up discovering (sort of) what's most important (kind of). Their misunderstanding of each other, of their relationship, and the stumbles as they try to figure out who they are, alone and together, is very well done.

I don't really care about comics, yet Fanboy's dedication to his magnus opus, his graphic novel, kept me incredibly engaged. And Lyga's ability to write a believable girl character becomes even more legitimized in this book's sequel--Goth Girl Rising (2009)--written in the first person from the perspective of a teenage girl. The realistic portrayal of a suburban high school is Lyga's greatest accomplishment, I think. He has a real ability to consider what teens care about and how they think and then captures it in Brookdale High School, where a number of his novels take place.

The False Prince

by Jennifer Nielsen
Scholastic Press | 2012
Buy it here!
And pre-order the 2nd in the trilogy!

Sage is an orphan, stealing to fill his belly and keep himself going for another day at the orphanage where he'll soon be put out for turning fifteen. One day he steals a roast, and when he's caught, a mysterious stranger pays off the merchant and takes Sage away. Along with two other boys, Rodan and Tobias, Sage is trained as part of an intricate plot to take over the throne of Carthya. One of the boys will pose as Prince Jaron, lost four years ago when pirates overtook the ship he was on. Each boy has attributes that make him a good choice, and they must vie to be chosen, or die.

I favor realism. I stay away from most books involving princes, princesses, and castles. I am rarely impressed by medieval-like world-building, even when those fantasy fans around me are doing a jig with glee. This book is a rare exception (along with The Graceling Realm and a few select others). Nielsen builds her world carefully, to be sure, but also in a realistic manner. For me, this is the mark of an excellent fantasy novel.

What marks The False Prince as an excellent book, regardless of genre, is the way in which the plot and characters are so deeply created. I feel like if Sage turned up tonight in my living room, I would know how to have a discussion with him. And I'd ask him what happened that time when he was in Conner's estate's tunnel, and how on earth he ever got the knife back to the kitchen when he was bleeding so much. That's how awesome the plot is.

This is the first in a planned trilogy, and the second is coming out in March. I'll be first in line to read it. You should be second.

Unwind

by Neal Shusterman
Simon & Schuster | 2007
Buy it here.

There was a second U.S. civil war--called the Heartland War--and for years now, the new rules about life have been established. There's no more option for abortion. Instead, unwanted children can be "storked," or left on the doorstep of any random house. Those who discover the baby must raise it as their own--it's illegal not to. And anyone who decides they don't want a child who has proved difficult? Anytime between the ages of 13 and 18, a child can be "unwound." That is--separated into pieces with each part given to those in medical need of replacement parts. An eye here, a hand there, a lung transplant or heart replacement over there. But each and every part of the unwound must be used, for after all, the child isn't dying--they will live on, but in a disassociated state.

Yup. You read all that right. That's the premise of the world in which Connor, Risa, and Lev live. They accidentally end up as three runaway unwinds bound together by circumstance. Each has come to their planned-to-be-unwound state in different ways, but each have similar questions about their lives, what they mean, and how the society in which they live functions.

Whether the reader is pro-choice, pro-life, or has yet to develop an opinion, the questions in this book are interesting. While Shusterman never uses the term "abortion," this book directly asks the reader to consider the existence of the soul, when life begins, and whether life can continue in alternate ways.

(Note: I've not read the sequel, published this past August, but plan to. It involves a teen made up wholly of parts of unwinds, and somehow involves Connor, Risa, and Lev, who are all likeable characters. It's called Unwholly. I'll report back.)

Brooklyn, Burning

by Steve Brezenoff
Carolrhoda LAB | 2011
Get it now!

Kid is only 15 but has been kicked out of home and is making do on the streets. Friends like Felix, a junkie; Fish, a friendly bar-owner; Konny, a friend since childhood with problems of her own; and Scout make life a bit more bearable. When NYPD starts sniffing around trying to pin a warehouse fire on Kid, things get turned a little upside down.

At the core of this poignant YA book is gender. How its performed, by whom, and when. The reader never learns what gender or sexual orientation Kid or Scout are--and it's unclear whether they know themselves. The fluidity of sexuality and of gender assignment is in question here. How people deal with it and interact with it are also important. Even while these themes are central, they are dealt with subtly (and handily) by Brezenoff. This book makes me want to read it in a book club or class, to talk about how each and every person reads it differently--it's one of those books.

Ender's Shadow: Parallel Novel to Ender's Game

 

by Orson Scott Card
Tor | 1999
Buy now!

If you haven't read Ender's Game, go. Go read it and then come back. I'll wait.

Okay, good. Now you know what you need to know to read Ender's Shadow, which in my opinion is actually better than Ender's Game. That last statement may perhaps be blasphemous, but I've decided I don't care. As much as I like Ender Wiggin and appreciate his struggles and his story, I find I like Bean that much better. And that Card, fourteen years after Ender's Game was published, decided to go back and write Bean's story, tells me that I'm not the only one with affection for Bean.

This is a parallel novel. This concept is so awesome to me, I don't even know where to start. Basically, Card went back and wrote Ender's Game again, only from the perspective of Bean. Through him, the reader gets that much more information about Battle School, the plans of Graff and the other teachers, and how the war against the buggers plays out. We get to see how Ender's rag-tag army was created and we get to understand more about how the political situation on Earth is playing out. We get to see a strong-willed, strong-minded character we root for even through his sometimes misguided behavior. We get to know Bean, an important character in Ender's Game, in his entirety.

Looking for the perfect holiday gift for a sci-fi-loving kid on your list? Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, bundled together. And let me also suggest, that no matter whether a reader professes to like sci-fi or not, these books cross-over and transcend genre. Give them a try. You'll be glad you did.

A Monster Calls

by Patrick Ness
inspired by an idea by Siobhan Dowd
illustrated by Jim Kay
Candlewick | 2011
Buy now!

Thirteen-year-old Conor has been recently plagued with a recurring nightmare, has a mom who is sick and isn't doing so well, a grandmother he doesn't really understand, and a father who is off in the U.S. living with his new wife. School is a problem as the bullies bother Conor each day; pretty much nothing is going well.

Conor also has a yew tree outside his window. One night, it turns into a giant monster and visits him. Slowly, over time, as the monster tells Conor three stories, he finds out what the monster wants -- why it has called on him.

My description here is purposely vague. To say much else would ruin the book, I think. Suffice it to say, this is a book for everyone and especially for any person (perhaps 12 years old and up) dealing with something difficult. Social workers and school counselors -- read and figure out if you have clients and students who might benefit from reading and discussing this special book.

Author Siobhan Dowd had the characters, premise, and a beginning for this story, which would've been her fifth book, but she died before she could write it. Ness was asked to write it in her stead, which he has done in her memory and with aplomb. Kay's illustrations are nothing short of phenomenal and the design of the book is something quite special from the silver foil on the cover to the yew-leaf covered end papers to the heavy gloss paper.

Clearly, I like this one a lot. I think you will too.

I know this looks terribly scary, but in context, the illustrations are perfect and in some odd way, not scary at all.

Absent

by Katie Williams
Chronicle Books | April 2013
Reviewed from an Advance Reader Copy
Pre-order now!

Paige is seventeen and she's dead. She died during a class when she fell off the roof of her school, and she's trapped there, in the school, with two other dead students -- their spirits are trapped (if you'll allow that religion/spirituality-based concept). Every time she tries to leave the school grounds, she is snapped back to the location where she died. It's a never-ending cycle.

Her best friend, Usha is upset and there are a flurry of rumors that she didn't actually fall, she stepped off the roof on purpose. When Paige discovers she can "enter" the bodies of her classmates if they think of her, she begins a quest to end the rumors and prove she didn't kill herself. A fantastic twist and a pretty happy ending make this a very well done package of a book.

Aimed at a 14+ audience, this YA novel asks lots of interesting questions about death and high school and allows for readers to think about their own reactions to what's asserted by the text. There's nothing heavy-handed about the story and no one religion's beliefs about death are privileged, making this a story that will likely have wide appeal.

Just One Day

by Gayle Forman
Penguin | January 8, 2013
Reviewed from ARC
Pre-order now!

Allyson and her best friend, Melanie, are on a big pre-college trip around Europe that their parents paid for to enlighten their minds. Melanie's been living it up, enjoying their young guide's frequent bar trips while Allyson's been playing it straight like she always does, never taking chances or risks. When the girls see a version of Twelfth Night performed by a Shakespeare street theatre troupe called Guerrilla Will, Allyson notices Willem, a handsome Dutch guy. Next thing she knows, she's going with him to Paris for just one day, leaving Melanie in London with a promise to keep the secret from Allyson's parents.

A series of events in Paris lead to strong feelings between Allyson and Willem and doesn't end well. Allyson returns first to London and then to the U.S. and back to her controlling mother's arms. She begins college on the pre-med track her mother has had her on since she was 13. And everything slowly starts to come apart.

Just one year later, Allyson decides she must find Willem and learn what happened that night in Paris. In true Gayle Forman style, the book grabs the reader from the start, moves along at a fast pace, and invites the reader to think and feel right alongside Allyson. This, like Forman's other books I've reviewed: If I Stay and Where She Went, is part of a planned duet. I'm really looking forward to the second one!

Holes

by Louis Sachar
Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 1996

I had forgotten how amazing Holes is. As a Newbery winner, it obviously is good, but it's not just good--it's truly amazing. I know two of the people who were on the Newbery committee that year, actually. I'm so pleased they chose this book. If you've read this book before, read it again. And if you know a child of either gender between the ages of 10 and 18, give it to them to read or read again. It's that good.

Stanley Yelnats is fat and bullied. His family struggles economically and things are pretty tough. One day, while he's walking along, a pair of sneakers falls from the sky, clocks Stanley in the head, and he's arrested for stealing them. Turns out they are some valuable sneakers. He's sent off to Camp Green Lake, in the middle of the desert in Texas. And there he is made to dig a hole each day, alongside the rest of the campers/prisoners who are also digging holes. The holes must be exactly 5 feet deep, 5 feet wide, and 5 feet across in every direction. They measure with their shovels. The Warden is looking for something.

When Zero is punished one day for helping Stanley dig his holes in return for reading lessons, he takes off across the desert and is left for dead. Stanley follows the next day, and together, they survive the desert, hatch a plan, and return to camp. In the grand climax of the story, all the pieces of the book fall together--stories told intermittently throughout the text involving Stanley's great-great-grandfather and a family curse and the story of the woman outlaw Kate Barlow and her forbidden love, Sam the onion man.

I don't own this book, but I'm going to buy a copy right now. You should too. (Note: I've not seen the movie, but if you've only seen the movie and never read the book--get the book. I bet it's better.)

Zoe's Tale

by John Scalzi
Tor | 2008

Zoe lives on Huckleberry, a planet that's part of the Colonial Union. She has her adoptive parents, John and Jane and two Obin, Hickory and Dickory, charged with making sure she's safe, because she is actually the lynchpin in universal peace. When John is chosen to command a new colony on the new planet of Roanoke, Zoe leaves with him, Jane, and 2500 other colonists and heads to their new home. What they don't know is that the Colonial Union has sent them purposely off course to a different planet to hide them from the evil Conclave. And it ends up that only Zoe can save them all in the end.

Scalzi's Old Man's War trilogy, published for adults, ended with The Last Colony, the story of the group's trip to Roanoke, told from John's (Zoe's dad) perspective. He returns to the same story to tell it again--from Zoe's perspective. Zoe's Tale works as a stand-alone novel and there's no need to have read The Last Colony to love it. And, the best part is, even though Zoe's Tale was also published as an adult novel, it is really a YA novel. It's protagonist and storyteller is a teenage girl, and the story is just as concerned with teenage problems as it is with interplanetary warfare.

Anyone who likes YA lit will likely love this. Anyone with a child who likes fantasy books will also love this. It's well written and a really well-paced and exciting story. It's one of my favorites I've read this year. (Don't dismiss it if you usually don't go for Sci-fi--you'd really be missing out!)

Why We Broke Up

by Daniel Handler (Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) will be at the Boston Book Festival tomorrow, October 27, as the Kid Keynote speaker)
illustrated by Maira Kalman
Little, Brown | 2011

Min is a girl scorned. She is breaking up with Ed and writing him an epic letter explaining why she's dumping him. Her reasons are linked to items she is placing in a box which she will put on his front steps. She's doing all this while riding in her best friend Al's truck--well, actually it's his dad's truck. Al and Min haven't been so close lately because she's been preoccupied with being Ed's girlfriend. Ed, after all, is a pretty popular guy.

The reader learns all about this dramatic teenage love affair through Min's manifesto accompanied by artwork of each item. Min's voice is clear and unique. The story is heart breaking and funny at the same time. Anyone who has ever been in a teenage relationship or wishes for one will likely love this book.

This is my favorite physical book of the last couple of years. It's heavy in your hands because the paper is coated to properly present Kalman's artwork, which are all glorious, colorful pieces. The leading (the space between lines of type) is nice and big, allowing the eye to breathe on the page as you read. The jacket is awesome, with a falling cup, linked to the back end papers. The story begins on the front end papers. Even the spine gets into the action, sporting an umbrella--the one item that Min wants back from Ed. The casewrap (the actual printed cover of the book under the jacket) is covered with Kalman-drawn rose pedals, an important item in the box Min is preparing for Ed.

YA romances abound these days. This is an old-fashioned love story that everyone will recognize (even those of us who have never met a vampire nor ever hoped to fall in love with one).

Crossing Stones

by Helen Frost
Farrar, Straus & Giroux | 2009

This narrative brings together the voices of two families in rural Michigan in 1917 as their sons go off to war and their daughters struggle to define themselves. There is an easy symmetry in the families and an assumption that the boys and girls will match up and be partnered, but Muriel finds herself questioning this arranged destiny. "Mother: I have no intention of becoming the Mrs. Norman of your imaginary future. Who I am remains to be seen - and I alone intend to be the one to see it." Muriel tells us this on page 15! So early we learn this young woman in 1917 will not be molded easily. And luckily for her, she has a paternal aunt who is fighting for suffrage.

At 16, Muriel is already questioning the status quo at school and at home, and her parents, although supportive, are cautionary. They tell her she must learn to mind her tongue, to think before she speaks, to not be too forthright with her thoughts or questions. They are raising a daughter, after all, in 1917. When Muriel attempts to write to her friend (not boyfriend) Frank, away at war, her mother is quick - "I'm not aware I know this rule, until I'm embarrassed to be caught breaking it: The gentleman should always be the first to write, Mama informs me. A lady never writes before she has received a letter." Yet two pages later, Muriel's mother says to her daughter after a bout of questioning: "Maybe you won't rock the cradle, Muriel. Some women prefer to rock the boat.

Told deftly by Helen Frost in verse, the poems are shaped round like river stones and waving like river water. The shape depends on from whose point of view they are told. This book is for anyone really, but it might be especially good for middle and high school girls. It reminded me why it's important to believe in myself and I think it would do the same for younger readers.

Double Helix

by Nancy Werlin
Dial | 2004

Eli lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is graduating as salutatorian of his class. His girlfriend, Viv, is the valedictorian. He's not going to college next year--his mother is dying of Huntington's Disease and he and his dad have a pretty tense relationship. He's going to take a year off and work at Wyatt Transgenics, just down the street, where the famous Dr. Quincy Wyatt is doing amazing things with genetics.

But Dr. Wyatt takes an odd interest in Eli, Eli's dad is angry about it, Viv is wondering what's going on, and then beautiful Kayla comes on the scene, staying at Dr. Wyatt's for the summer. Soon, Eli is caught up in trying to find out his history, why his father hates Dr. Wyatt so much, and what went on more than a decade ago that he thinks he can remember.

This fantastic science fiction novel now published with the tagline: "a mystery" is more rooted in the real world than a mysterious one, in my opinion. Eli's search and desire to know more about who he is makes a lot of sense. And the end leaves room for you to think, and to wonder. What's right? What isn't? Who is Eli? What makes us who we are? 

Just about anyone might love this story, but for anyone who has recently asked for an appropriate book for middle school aged boys: this is it!

The Boston Book Festival Preview

October 27, 2012 will mark the fourth annual Boston Book Festival (since its re-emergence). Visit here for all the info you need to plan your day. Just click on the session and you'll get info about each speaker/program/presentation. Everything happens in and around Copley Square, it's entirely free, and there's something for everyone in the family.

As a volunteer, I'm producing one of the YA panels entitled: Overcoming Adversity. It is moderated by Amy Pattee, a professor of library science at Simmons College and the three authors who will speak are Barry Lyga (Boy Toy, Fan Boy and Goth Girl, I Hunt Killers), Jo Knowles (Jumping Off Swings, Pearl, See You at Harry's), and Kate Burak (Emily's Dress and Other Missing Things).

All three of these authors take on controversial and compelling issues in their stories. Lyga's most recent book, I Hunt Killers (Little, Brown 2012), is about the son of a serial killer attempting to carve out an identity for himself in his small town where everyone thinks they already know him. I reviewed it here.

Knowles's latest, See You at Harry's (Candlewick 2012), offers a family with four kids that owns a restaurant. When a tragedy befalls them, they each fall apart in different ways and have to figure out how to stitch their family back together.

In Burak's debut novel (Roaring Brook 2012), she writes about Claire, who is spending her second senior year of high school in a new town far away from all the mess she left behind, but trouble seems to follow her.

All three are excellent and I'm interested in what these three talented authors will have to say on October 27. Join us!

No Crystal Stair

subtitle: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller
by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson
illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
Carolrhoda Lab/Lerner Publishing Group | 2012

This 2012 Boston Globe Horn Book fiction winner presents fantastic information about Lewis Michaux, the founder and proprietor of the National Memorial African Bookstore in Harlem from 1930 until it was shut because the building was taken via eminent domain in 1974. People like Nikki Giovanni, Malcolm X, and more visited the store and spent time with "The Professor" as Michaux was called. Life for many "ain't been no crystal stair" as Langston Hughes wrote and Michaux was one.

The bookstore

Nelson, the author, began researching her family history, including the store many years ago. She remembered visiting it as a child, but as more and more people mentioned the impact her great uncle had had on them, the more curious she got. Soon, what she thought was going to be a biography took on a life of its own, and she found herself wanting to include more and needing to use conjecture about some things. And so this "documentary novel" was created.

There are millions of pockets of history in the U.S. that so many have no idea about. I, for one, did not even know this bookstore existed, let alone the very important role it played in Harlem. I am thankful to authors like Vaunda Nelson who bring me these forgotten moments through books.

Get this one for your history class or social studies class. Invite your students to learn something they won't otherwise encounter. Do the same for your children. This book is a fantastic place to start.

Keesha's House

by Helen Frost
Farrar, Straus & Giroux | 2004

This middle grade/YA novel written in verse brings to light the struggles of teenagers displaced from their parents and living together in the home of a neighbor who is willing to provide a safe space. The house is technically Joe's, who was taken in by his aunt when he was a teen, but it's become known as "Keesha's House" because she is so good with sussing out who needs what and when.

Stephie is pregnant; Jason, her boyfriend is the star basketball player whose plans are going to be derailed; Carmen has been caught drinking yet again; Harris is gay and his father is less than thrilled; Katie's mother married a man who has less-than-innocent interest in Katie; Dontay has been in a number of foster homes; and Keesha's mother died and her father is an alcoholic and failing at raising her and her brother. Some heavy stuff to all be in the same book, but Frost handles it deftly, softens it appropriately, and the form--poetry--makes it less intense than it sounds.

Awarded a Printz Honor in 2004, this book is lovely. And its author is lovely (I've met her). It is not easy to write a novel in verse that doesn't feel forced, yet Helen Frost does it time and time again (see also Diamond Willow, Crossing Stones and more).

Little (Grrl) Lost

by Charles de Lint
Viking | 2007

Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth is a Little. You know, those tiny 6-inch-tall people that you know from The Borrowers or The Littles books. She lives in the walls of fifteen-year-old T.J.'s house with her family until the day she runs away, right into T.J.'s room. All she has is a tiny dufflebag full of clothes and her attitude. She intends to make her way in the world.

Two weeks later, T.J. discovers Elizabeth in the garden shed, as far as she's made it in the wild world of the Bigs, rife with dangers such as cats and birds and other animals. Elizabeth reluctantly moves into T.J.'s room and they become fast friends.

In order to learn more about the Littles's heritage and to help Elizabeth trace her relatives (for her own family has fled the walls of T.J.'s house after Elizabeth exposed them), the girls decide to go to a reading of an author of children's books featuring Little-like people. But on the way to the bookstore, they are interrupted, separated, and both injured.

What follows is a fantastic story of two girls' journeys, told in both their first-person voices in alternating chapters. The others they meet will stay with you as reader for a long time and the choices each girl makes and how she makes them will leaving you wondering about and respecting each as a open-minded thinker.

This is one of the best books I've read this year (and considering I've read over 150 books so far in 2012, that's saying a lot). Fantasy and realism fans alike will love Elizabeth and T.J. and Charles de Lint's writing. I promise (and that's a big deal--it's important not to make promises in fairyland).

Drawing From Memory

by Allen Say
Scholastic | 2011

This 2012 Sibert Medal Honor book chronicles Allen Say's personal journey from childhood to adult illustrator and writer. Told in the first person, the book invites the reader to journey with Say from the Japan of his childhood beginning with his birth in 1937 through his struggles with his parents around his chosen vocation to his independent living in an apartment of his own at the age of 12. It continues through his apprenticeship with one of the most lauded Japanese cartoonists to his choice to join his father in the United States.

The book is told through both words and pictures and feels a bit like a graphic novel. At 64 pages, it is picture book for slightly older readers and perfect for discussions about discovery: discovery of self, of meaning, and of family. Say's stories are gifts to children's literature (check out Grandfather's Journey and The Bicycle Man for two of my favorites) and he's known for his nonfiction stories that are largely autobiographical.

Don't miss this book. It's not only beautiful, it's also poignant in a gentle, understated way that leaves room for the reader's own interpretation. A perfect combination.

The House of the Scorpion

by Nancy Farmer
Atheneum Books for Young Readers | 2002

Matt is an unusual child. He lives in a house in the woods with Celia and he never goes outside. He knows some about how the world works from watching television, but has never experienced anything himself. One day, children show up near the house and see him, banging on the door. He's afraid and enthralled. Soon, he's integrated into the bigger estate and the favored child of El Patrón, the 140-year-old lord of a country called Opium, situated between the United States and what used to be Mexico, which controls all the drug exports to the rest of the world. Matt is favored for a reason. He's the seventh clone of El Patrón, each and every one eventually killed through harvests of organs to keep El Patrón alive.

To say anymore about what happens would be the worst kind of spoiler, so I'll stop here and just say that this National Book Award Winner also won a Newbery Honor and a Printz Honor. Farmer's story-telling skill and her ability to write such a futuristic story in such modern, every-day language are both part of the draw. There's a lot to wonder about here: what makes a person a person? Why and how are decisions made and institutions built? Who has the power and how did they get it?

Matt can help you ponder some of these questions and more.