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| I forgot to take a pic of book 1 |
Here's the problem.
The story starts out mysteriously which leads you to want to keep reading, but the whole thing is about the "post-Disaster" time on Earth. Most people would call this post-apocalyptic. So it sounds like there has been the equivalent of a nuclear holocaust about 100 years ago, and this story is about the survivors.
A child old enough to understand and cope with that idea may not be all that interested in the story itself. Much of the story is really quite simplistic. There are parts left for the reader to figure out that seem a little hokey to me.
For example, there is a building (in the second book, The People of Sparks) that is labeled "UPE ARK". With just a little thought, you realize this used to be a sUPErmARKet. Gimmicks like this remind me of the Mirror of Erised (read that backwards) in Harry Potter.
Book 1, The City of Ember, is about an underground city prepared over a century ago by the Builders. Their goal was to have a place for people to survive the impending disaster they were sure was coming.
At the end of that book, the people figure out what their city is all about and make it to the surface of the Earth.
The People of Sparks is about the Emberites interactions with surface survivors in the city they call Sparks. Ember had a fair amount of advanced technology, like electricity. Sparks has none.
Why does no one think to go back to Ember for the technology? This finally happens in Book 4, but only after a roamer gives them a book with a message to the people of Ember from the Builders. What I'm saying is that they needed help. They couldn't come up with the idea on their own.
One of the protagonists, Lina, hears a riddle and figures out that it's about the people of Ember. Almost out of the blue, she realizes that the line from the riddle, “Remember the city, the city remember”, actually should go “Remember the city, the city of Ember”.
Where did that come from? She gets that, but neither she nor Doon, the other protagonist, can figure out that there's plenty of good stuff down in Ember that would help everyone above ground.
I don't buy it.
Book 3, The Prophet of Yonwood, is a prequel. At the end, the person who wrote the journal (that Lina discovers on the way of out Ember) takes the journal with her on the way into Ember.
Book 4, The Diamond of Darkhold, is mostly about getting tech up to speed again. I didn't read either of these last two books.
One of the best things I can say about these books is that, as far as I know, they don't actually get into the gory details of the Disaster. Again, the story itself is decent, but I have a hard time figuring out who should read it.
Maybe I should ask Lina.
