Cox Commentaries: The City of Ember

Fans of Lois Lowery's The Giver will love Jeanne DuPrau's The City of Ember. Both novels have a similar feel as they take you into the land of speculative fiction.

In The City of Ember, DuPrau takes you into a city where the sky is always dark. The only light comes from electric light bulbs, powered by a generator that none of the citizens know exactly how it works. From The Book of the City of Ember, which all children study in school, the citizens learn that "the city of Ember was made for us long ago by the Builders. It is the only light in the dark world. Beyond Ember, the darkness goes on forever in all directions." Who "the Builders" were, no one knows, only that they built the city and stored it, according the Book, with "abundance never-ending."

But now in the year 241, Ember is in trouble. The stock rooms are nearly empty, and terrifying blackouts occur during the middle of the day as the generator begins to fail. What will happen to Ember when the stock rooms run dry? Could the next blackout be the last one, the end of their light forever?

DuPrau skillfully takes readers through Ember by following the experiences of two twelve-year-old children. With vivid descriptions, three-dimensional characters, and a well developed plot, readers will quickly be engrossed into the children's world and have trouble putting the book down. At the end, readers are left to wonder, what if this world was real? Could this be in our future?

I highly recommend this book, winner of the 2006 Mark Twain Award. DuPrau geared the novel towards children (about ages 9+), but adults are easily intrigued by it as well. There are three more books in the Book of Ember Series (The People of Sparks, The Prophet of Yonwood, and The Diamond of Darkhold) that I have yet to read.