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The People of Sparks (Books of Ember) (Hardcover) (Hardcover)
by Jeanne Duprau
| Category:
Fiction, Ages 9-12, Children's books |
| Market price: ¥ 178.00
MSL price:
¥ 158.00
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Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
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 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
The People Of Sparks a wonderful, and a total edge-of-your-seat kind of book, bring the kids an exciting and marvelous journey. |
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Author: Jeanne Duprau
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Pub. in: May, 2004
ISBN: 0375828249
Pages: 352
Measurements: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BC00399
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0375828249
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- Awards & Credential -
Jeanne DuPrau is the author of The New York Times bestseller The City of Ember. |
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- MSL Picks -
Although this is a very different book with The City of Ember, it is a perfect sequel. While The City of Ember may have been more inventive, in terms of an underground city that was on its last leg, this is infinitely more profound.
It's still inventive, though. A terrible Disaster has befallen the Earth, and the Emberites learn that they were sent to live below the Earth, in the event that the Disaster did, in fact, occur, and so that one day they could return to the surface and repopulate the world. If that isn't a terrific idea, I'm not sure what is. The Emberites luckily find themselves in one of the more prosperous towns. As most in the town of Sparks are good and decent people, they agree to feed these strange newcomers for a certain amount of time, and while doing so teach them basic survival skills. As one can imagine, no Emberite possesses the skills to survive on the surface. All they knew was Ember, and the simple rules that governed survival in that city. Sparks has its own governing rules, and Ms. DuPrau really shows a deft hand at creating intriguing cultures. It's obvious that she gave considerable thought to a post-apocalyptic world, and her vision of it is refreshing and true. Sadly, greed raises its ugly head, on both sides, and the cultures have a terrible clash. But an important lesson is learned. It may seem trite to some, but it really is a powerful message. Paraphrased, it goes something like this: If someone does something mean to you, instead of doing something mean in return, try and do something good for them. The opportunity for such a deed presents itself, and we see this good faith effort in action. The Emberites, we see, had something to teach the people of Sparks - and perhaps the whole world. Together, they are stronger than they are apart.
Overall speaking, it's a heartwarming beautiful story and a satisfying follow-up to the first book.
- From quoting a reader
Target readers:
Kids aged 9-12
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Jeanne DuPrau is the author of The New York Timesbestseller The City of Ember and its companion The People of Sparks. Jeanne DuPrau has been a teacher, an editor, and a technical writer. She lives in Menlo Park, California, and drives a hybrid car that runs on a combination of gas and electricity.
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From the publisher
The People of Sparks picks up where The City of Ember leaves off. Lina and Doon have emerged from the underground city to the exciting new world above, and it isn’t long before they are followed by the other inhabitants of Ember. The Emberites soon come across a town where they are welcomed, fed, and given places to sleep. But the town’s resources are limited and it isn’t long before resentment begins to grow between the two groups. When anonymous acts of vandalism push them toward violence, it’s up to Lina and Doon to discover who’s behind the vandalism and why, before it’s too late.
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Chapter 1
What Torren Saw
Torren was out at the edge of the cabbage field that day, the day the people came. He was supposed to be fetching a couple of cabbages for Dr. Hester to use in the soup that night, but, as usual, he didn't see why he shouldn't have some fun while he was at it. So he climbed up the wind tower, which he wasn't supposed to do because, they said, he might fall or get his head sliced off by the big blades going round and round.
The wind tower was four-sided, made of boards nailed one above the next like the rungs of a ladder. Torren climbed the back side of it, the side that faced the hills and not the village, so that the little group of workers hoeing the cabbage rows wouldn't see him. At the top, he turned around and sat on the flat place behind the blades, which turned slowly in the idle summer breeze. He had brought a pocketful of small stones up with him, planning on some target practice: he liked to try to hit the chickens that rummaged around between the rows of cabbages. He thought it might be fun to bounce a few pebbles off the hats of the workers, too. But before he had even taken the stones from his pocket, he caught sight of something that made him stop and stare.
Out beyond the cabbage field was another field, where young tomato and corn and squash plants were growing, and beyond that the land sloped up into a grassy hillside dotted, at this time of year, with yellow mustard flowers. Torren saw something strange at the top of the hill. Something dark.
There were bits of darkness at first-for a second he thought maybe it was a deer, or several deer, black ones instead of the usual light brown, but the shape was wrong for deer, and the way these things moved was wrong, too. He realized very soon that he was seeing people, a few people at first and then more and more of them. They came up from the other side of the hill and gathered at the top and stood there, a long line of them against the sky, like a row of black teeth. There must have been a hundred, Torren thought, or more than a hundred.
In all his life, Torren had never seen more than three or four people at a time arrive at the village from elsewhere. Almost always, the people who came were roamers, passing through with a truckload of stuff from the old towns to sell. This massing of people on
the hilltop terrified him. For a moment he couldn't move. Then his heart started up a furious pounding, and he scrambled down off the wind tower so fast that he scraped his hands on the rough boards.
"Someone's coming!" he shouted as he passed the workers. They looked up, startled. Torren ran at full speed toward the low cluster of brown buildings at the far end of the field. He turned up a dirt lane, his feet raising swirls of dust, and dashed through the gate in the wall and across the courtyard and in through the open door, all the time yelling, "Someone's coming! Up on the hill! Auntie Hester! Someone's coming!"
He found his aunt in the kitchen, and he grabbed her by the waist of her pants and cried, "Come and see! There's people on the hill!" His voice was so shrill and urgent and loud that his aunt dropped the spoon into the pot of soup she'd been stirring and hurried after him. By the time they got outside, others from the village were leaving their houses, too, and looking toward the hillside.
The people were coming down. Over the crest of the hill they came and kept coming, dozens of them, more and more, like a mudslide.
The people of the village crowded into the streets. "Get Mary Waters!" someone called. "Where's Ben and Wilmer? Find them, tell them to get out here!"
Torren was less frightened now that he was surrounded by the townspeople. "I saw them first," he said to Hattie Carranza, who happened to be hurrying along next to him. I was the one who told the news."
"Is that right," said Hattie.
"We won't let them do anything bad to us," said Torren. "If they do, we'll do something worse to them. Won't we?"
But she just glanced down at him with a vague frown and didn't answer.
The three village leaders - Mary Waters, Ben Barlow, and Wilmer Dent - had joined the crowd by now and were leading the way across the cabbage field. Torren kept close behind them. The strangers were getting nearer, and he wanted to hear what they would say. He could see that they were terrible-looking people. Their clothes were all wrong - coats and sweaters, though the weather was warm, and not nice coats and sweaters but raggedy ones, patched, unraveling, faded, and grimy. They carried bundles, all of them: sacks made of what looked like tablecloths or blankets gathered up and tied with string around the neck. They moved clumsily and slowly. Some of them tripped on the uneven ground and had to be helped up by others.
In the center of the field, where the smell of new cabbages and fresh dirt and chicken manure was strong, those at the front of the crowd of strangers met the village leaders. Mary Waters stepped to the front, and the villagers crowded up behind her. Torren, being small, wriggled between people until he had a good view. He stared at the ragged people. Where were their leaders? Facing Mary were a girl and a boy who looked only a little older than he was himself. Next to them was a bald man, and next to him a sharp-eyed woman holding a small child. Maybe she was the leader.
But when Mary stepped forward and said, "Who are you?" it was the boy who answered. He spoke in a clear, loud voice that surprised Torren, who had expected a pitiful voice from someone so bedraggled. "We come from the city of Ember," the boy said. "We left there because our city was dying. We need help."
Mary, Ben, and Wilmer exchanged glances. Mary frowned. "The city of Ember? Where's that? We've never heard of it. "
The boy gestured back the way they had come, to the east. "That way," he said. "It's under the ground."
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| View all 8 comments |
Jenny (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-16 00:00>
The People of Sparks is the worthy sequel to the The City of Ember. Although the two books have very different themes and plots, the People of Sparks has a very clear theme. This awesome book starts with the people of the underground city, Ember, starting a new life in the land above, with the People of Sparks.
But, aboveground, much had happened. Wars and sicknesses had destroyed almost all humans off the face of Earth. The People of Sparks were the few towns that were prospering after the Great Diaster. But, because of the trouble of training the people of Ember to learn how to survive and with the food draining, the tension between the people of Ember and the people of Sparks grow and grow until war explodes between the two groups.
DuPrau has outdone herself in The People of Sparks. It expresses the horror that can happen to us, humans, if we do not work together in harmony and survive together. I loved the ending of this book as the people of Ember and Sparks come together to erase their mistakes and to teach each other their talents. Also in the end, hope sparks up again as one of our main character bring electricity aboveground again.
I think that the City of Ember and the People of Sparks are rare books with interesting plots that drives readers on. I love DuPrau's imagination for our future and her warning for readers. Read this book! |
Michael Newman (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-16 00:00>
This book picks up immediately where The City of Ember left off. The people of Ember find Doon and Lina's note and have made it to the surface just as the lights in Ember were going out for good. They follow Lina and Doon through the strange new world and end up weary and dazed at the town of Sparks. It turns out that this town is one of the largest and most thriving settlements since after the disaster/war that has nearly wiped out mankind. At first the townsfolk cannot believe anything about an underground city with lights that the Ember populace tell them about. But their pale skins, small sizes and ragged overly heavy clothing convinces the Sparks elders that this could be from living without sun and maybe the Emberites are truthful.
The elders have to decide what to do with the Emberites since turning them away would surely mean their death. The Emberites have no skills related to building and farming and no livestock to sustain them. However, the people of Sparks have just enough food for their own populace and an extra 400 people would mean hard times and shortages for them. They decide to let the Emberites stay for 6 months during which they will be taught all the skills to live on their own and can then leave to build their own town elsewhere.
This turns out to be a problem as the Emberites are not used to hard toil, changing weather climates, sun, insects, etc. and therefore start to take a long time to adjust. The differences in the two townsfolk cause extreme animosity between the two groups that may lead to a "war." Doon and Lina saved the people of Ember once and have their work cut out for them this time to do it again.
The book is a little bit slower than the first book but is a good story nonetheless. It shows that a little bit of hatred can blow a minor incident out of proportion, especially where people pre-judge the incident without knowing the facts. That one misunderstood incident could lead to a war.
The book does give us a clue as to what happened to the rest of the world and seem to resolve most of its issues by the end. I would recommend reading the first book prior to reading this one though, to get a better flavor of the Emberites and what their culture was like. |
Brent Hartinger (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-16 00:00>
I loved City of Ember, so approached this sequel warily. Obviously, the mystery of the first book has been solved, so where does the author go from there? Well, in this case, she wrote a book about the complicated choices that come "after" Happily Ever After. I loved the richness of this landscape and characters. Nothing is simple in this book, just like nothing is simple in life. The result was a reading experience that left me completely satisfied, and more than a little in awe of the author. |
A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-03-16 00:00>
Sparks is an amazing and wonderful sequel to The City of Ember, with a fascinating and fast paced story line and truly interesting and memorable characters. I was worried that Sparks would not be as great as Ember, but I loved it just as much (if not more) and was so sorry to come to the end. This brilliant and imaginative book will appeal to children and adults alike, and I'm sure will be read for many years to come. Please, Ms. DuPrau, write more! |
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