Another Book Review by the Awesome Emilie

“In the city of Ember, the sky was always dark. The only light came from great flood lamps mounted on the buildings and at the tops of poles in the middle of the larger squares. When the lights were on, they cast a yellowish glow over the streets; people walking by threw long shadows that shortened and then stretched out again. When the lights were off, as they were between nine at night and six in the morning, the city was so dark that people might as well have been wearing blindfolds.”

A bit before the city was born, a chief builder and his assistant decided on leaving the city residents a box of instructions for when the lights began to dim. They left it in the hands of the mayor, who passed it to his successor, and so on and so on. But one mayor decides he wants to open it. So he whacks it with a hammer unsuccessfully, got frustrated and left it in his closet. Then he passed away; not in enough time to tell his successor or return the box to it’s original hiding place. So the box remained there, until it clicked open of it’s own accord, as planned by the chief builder and assistant, but nobody heard or acknowledged it.

Years later, Lina Mayfleet finds a box with paper in it. Unfortunately, her sister Poppy has already ripped and chewed bits of it. Lina doesn’t know what these are, and she and her friend, Doon, are trying to figure it out. Could they be important?

Could the mayor be holding a secret?

Could these be the instructions?

-Emilie S.

If you like City of Ember, be sure to check out the rest of the books in the series and the movie!

Tags: book review, City of Ember, Jeanne DuPrau, review, series, teen book review, teen review