From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up–In a dystopian (though vaguely familiar) wilderness called Siberia, young Rosita and her mother live in a camp as political prisoners. By day, Rosita's mother makes nails, but secretly at night, she performs her "magic" of creating and harvesting animal life with a Lindquist kit. When Rosita excels at the prison school, she is sent away to board at New Dawn School. She is quickly disenchanted, tricked into betraying her mother and sending her to die, and becomes "Sloe," helping to run a stolen-goods ring in the school. When Sloe is expelled, she returns home long enough to steal the Lindquist kit and then makes a break for the enlightened city several hundred miles to the north where her mother told her she would find safety. Halam intertwines issues of ecology, climate change, and nature conservancy with more personal themes of loneliness, identity, and trust. Sloe's experiences are far-fetched, akin to
Dr. Franklin's Island (2002) and
Taylor Five (2004, both Random), but underneath their bizarre nature lies the believable character of a 14-year-old girl struggling with a daunting responsibility that she doesn't understand. The bitterly cold setting, the hunger, and fear are almost palpable. The initially slow pace picks up about halfway through and hurtles readers toward an uncertain but satisfying conclusion. Halam also publishes fantasy and science fiction for adults under the name Gwyneth Jones.
–Melissa Moore, Union University Library, Jackson, TN Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Gr. 5-8. Unlike the characters in Gloria Whelan's
The Incredible Journey (2003) or Esther Hautzig's
The Endless Steppe 1968), those in Halam's novel inhabit a metaphorical Siberia--an ice-enveloped future where cataclysmic extinctions of wild mammals have occurred, resulting in what 13-year-old Sloe calls "a
poverty of life." Sloe grew up in a Settlement with her mother, an exiled scientist who secretly nurtured mysterious, genetically engineered life forms that can metamorphose into lost species. When her mother is arrested, 13-year-old Sloe assumes responsibility for the "Lindquist kits" and must brave frostbite, hunger, bandits, and governmental patrols to deliver her cargo to safety. Sloe is both fierce and flawed, and the way her odd animal companions soothe a spirit scarred by privations will speak strongly to many readers. Even so, the foreboding atmosphere casts a chill over the narrative that may limit its audience. Offer this to sf fans who lapped up the provocative science of Nancy Farmer's
The House of the Scorpion (2002) or Halam's own
Taylor Five (2004).
Jennifer MattsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
