City of Ember

Jeanne DuPrau blends fantasy and mystery to create City of Ember, the first book in the Books of Ember series.

Built by the Founders, Ember was meant to be a temporary home. A place where their descendants could live until the surface world was safe. Leaving behind instructions to guide their children home, the Founders disappeared.

For 200 years the people of Ember have lived underground with no knowledge of their origins. The city survives by living off vast warehouses of food and supplies. Workers struggle to maintain the technology of the Founders, their only source of light. But with frequent blackouts and shortages of supplies the people of Ember are beginning to succumb to the darkness.

Explore the city through the eyes of Lina Mayfleet, a 12-year old laborer, struggling to find a better place for her grandmother and sister. A place beyond the chaos of Ember. With nowhere to turn and time running out, Lina accepts the help of former-friend and classmate, Doon Harrow. Together they race to decode a message from the past and save the city from itself.

The City of Ember is an easy-to-read chapter book best-suited for readers 10-17. While the vocabulary is not particularly challenging, younger readers may have some difficulty with the social and political concepts central to the plot. The slow pace of the story may cause some children to outright lose interest.

Despite their age both the main characters are complex. Their roundness makes them occasionally inaccessible and opaque. Similarly, their relationship with each other can be isolating for the reader. Due to this depth, the book will easily hold the attention of preteens and adolescents.

Although written for a young audience, City of Ember has a dark tone throughout. The first pages of the novel create tension and concern for a world that is falling apart. The physical darkness of the city streets is carried into the characters, particularly the Mayor and his attendants. DuPrau openly writes about starvation, social turmoil, death, political corruption and romance. Mature themes may be inappropriate for children reading alone. However, City of Ember provides an excellent companion book for class discussions of world hunger, overpopulation and social responsibility. The morality of the story, though evident, is not forced. And the final chapters leave much room for interpretation and discussion.

Consider reading the book as a family. The chapter breaks are evenly-paced making it easy to keep a regular reading time, however the cliffhanger sequences may keep you all up past bedtime.

Be sure to look for the movie adaptation, City of Ember (2008). The cinematic adaptation has a much faster pace, but remains true to the dark atmosphere and characterizations of the book.