Promising Post-apocalyptic

Response #4

I read The City of Embers by Jeanne DuPrau while I was in middle school, but had forgotten much of the plot so I was very excited to read it again now that I am older and wiser.  I had never read The People of Sparks, though, so it was nice to be able to actually have some closure to the first book – which is left with quite a cliffhanger.

There are quite a number of post-apocalyptic books that are typically required reading for the young-adult students – i.e., The Giver, Fahrenheit 451, Hunger Games, and Anthem. Those books can sometimes be intimidating by their size, projected content, or simply the genre “post-apocalyptic.” With books like The City of Embers, students can be eased into this genre and see how enjoyable it actually can be and then will be more apt to read and enjoy the aforementioned books.

I truly enjoyed getting to read the first two books of the Ember series – they were easy and a pleasure to read.  They are well written, both grammatically and the messages it shares. Lina and Doon, the main characters, both stand up for things they believe in, despite what everyone else tries to tell them.  And in the end, they save all of their people.  Especially in the second book, so many wonderful moral victories and lessons are woven into the story in a way that parents and children will both appreciate!

Teaching these books would be very exciting – you could have the class go through a day to pick jobs from a bag and then do writing assignments from the point of view of those jobs.  They could do research on different cultures and imagine what it would be like to just be thrown into such a foreign environment.  You could also do some fun decoding of texts – maybe use a mathematical code to make the activity cross-curricular. Maybe finish the unit by watching Disney/Pixar’s Walle since they have many of the same themes.

All in all, I really enjoyed reading these books and I look forward to using them in my classroom one day!

DuPrau, J. (2003). The City of Ember. New York: Random House.

DuPrau, J. (2004). The People of Sparks. New York: Random House.