The City of Ember

I initially thought that I would have no idea what to post for this Science Fiction segment of class (you're not alone, Chelsey!) but then I realized I actually enjoyed quite a few children's/young adult SciFi novels. One of my favorites was The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. The book was published in 2003 and a film was released in 2008. While I am unfamiliar with the film version, the book is often listed as one of the best SciFi books for kids. It plays on some familiar themes within the genre as well, including a need for an alternate inhabitable space and the loss of autonomy among the people.

In The City of Ember the people live in a civilization that is completely underground and artificially lit. We learn in the third book of the series that this is due to a global war above ground. While the reader quickly realizes that Ember is underground, the main characters in the book do not discover this fact until the very end of the story when they travel above ground and see the sunset and trees for the first time. There is some irony on pg. 33 of the link included below when one of the main characters speaks of working in terrible conditions underground when she could be above ground where everything is happening.

The people of Ember have also lost much of their autonomy, a theme I believe to be fairly prevalent in SciFi novels. The children are assigned to jobs when they finish with their schooling by drawing a position out of a bag on the last day of school. Interestingly, in my opinion, the jobs are not gender segregated - every child in the class pulls out of the same bag of opportunity. The children are also allowed to trade jobs if they'd like. I would think that gives the citizens an element of control the government wouldn't want them to have.

The link to the full book online is here: http://daal.deltaschools.com/content/for-students/the-city-of-ember-pdf.pdf 

I read the intro and first chapter in just a few minutes so its a quick read that packs in quite a few themes and motifs to discuss and analyze. Enjoy!