The City of Ember

Bibliography
DuPrau, Jeanne. 2003. THE CITY OF EMBER (SOUND RECORDING). Listening Library, C/O Random House. Westminster, MD. ISBN 0739331675.

Plot
In the city of Ember, every twelve year old child awaits the suspenseful Assignment day. The day when you receive your work assignment for the next three years, the day your heart will either sink or soar. We follow Lina through the streets of Ember, Doon through the pipeworks of Ember, and both of them on their quest to read a mysterious note left to them by the Builders almost two hundred and fifty years earlier. However, this note, full of holes thanks to Lina’s two year old sister, might contain the most important information the Builders left for the inhabitants of Ember. More important than the storage rooms, the generator, and the electricity they need to light up the continually dark sky in the city. However, even if they decode this note, and it leads to a new city, will anyone believe them?

Critical Analysis
This audio book not only uses the amazing vocal talents of Wendy Dillon, but the sound effects help create the desolate world where Lina and Doon live. We are able to hear background noises in the meeting hall, the sound of the pipeworks dripping, and even the roar of the great river below the city. The vocal characterization Dillon offers only assist us mentally painting the pictures DuPrau so beautifully wrote. The city of Ember has its own customs, traditions, superstitions, and workings, just as our own world possesses. The theme, hope, is a continual presence found in Doon’s anger, in Lina’s drawings of her special city, in the clusters of Believers Lina passes on her message deliveries, and in the moth Doon is watching transform from a crawling thing, to a flying thing. The plot of this book is consistent with the laws that govern Ember. DuPrau’s style of describing a crumbling city, worn out clothing, recycling everything, and crammed houses are inviting as well as interesting. Despite a few character flaws, such as fully establishing a reason for Doon’s anger or the seemingly “instant” acceptance of Granny’s death on Lina’s part, the variety and uniqueness of minor characters more than make up for the wanting in the major characters. All in all, the visit to Ember is well worth the dangerous, exciting, and unexpected trip.

Review Excerpts
Kirkus Reviews-This promising debut is set in a dying underground city. Ember, which was founded and stocked with supplies centuries ago by "The Builders," is now desperately short of food, clothes, and electricity to keep the town illuminated. Lina and Doon find long-hidden, undecipherable instructions that send them on a perilous mission to find what they believe must exist: an exit door from their disintegrating town. In the process, they uncover secret governmental corruption and a route to the world above. Well-paced, this contains a satisfying mystery, a breathtaking escape over rooftops in darkness, a harrowing journey into the unknown and cryptic messages for readers to decipher. The setting is well-realized with the constraints of life in the city intriguingly detailed.
School Library Journal-DuPrau debuts with a promisingly competent variation on the tried-and-true "isolated city" theme. More than 200 years after an unspecified holocaust, the residents of Ember have lost all knowledge of anything beyond the area illuminated by the floodlamps on their buildings. The anxiety level is high and rising, for despite relentless recycling, food and other supplies are running low, and the power failures that plunge the town into impenetrable darkness are becoming longer and more frequent. Then Lina, a young foot messenger, discovers a damaged document from the mysterious Builders that hints at a way out. She and Doon, a classmate, piece together enough of the fragmentary directions to find a cave filled with boats near the river that runs beneath Ember, but their rush to announce their discovery almost ends in disaster when the two fall afoul of the corrupt Mayor and his cronies. Lina and Doon escape in a boat, and after a scary journey emerge into an Edenlike wilderness to witness their first sunrise–for Ember, as it turns out, has been built in an immense cavern. Still intent on saving their people, the two find their way back underground at the end, opening the door for sequels. The setting may not be so ingeniously envisioned as those of, say, Joan Aiken's Is Underground (Turtleback, 1995) and Lois Lowry's The Giver (Houghton, 1993), but the quick pace and the uncomplicated characters and situations will keep voracious fans of the genre engaged
BookList -Ember, a 241-year-old, ruined domed city surrounded by a dark unknown, was built to ensure that humans would continue to exist on Earth, and the instructions for getting out have been lost and forgotten. On Assignment Day, 12-year-olds leave school and receive their lifetime job assignments. Lina Mayfleet becomes a messenger, and her friend Doon Harrow ends up in the Pipeworks beneath the city, where the failing electric generator has been ineffectually patched together. Both Lina and Doon are convinced that their survival means finding a way out of the city, and after Lina discovers pieces of the instructions, she and Doon work together to interpret the fragmented document. Life in this postholocaust city is well limned--the frequent blackouts, the food shortage, the public panic, the search for answers, and the actions of the powerful, who are taking selfish advantage of the situation. Readers will relate to Lina and Doon's resourcefulness and courage in the face of ominous odds.
Publishers Weekly-In her electric debut, DuPrau imagines a post-apocalyptic underground world where resources are running out. The city of Ember, "the only light in the dark world," began as a survival experiment created by the "Builders" who wanted their children to "grow up with no knowledge of a world outside, so that they feel no sorrow for what they have lost." An opening prologue describes the Builders' intentions—that Ember's citizens leave the city after 220 years. They tuck "The Instructions" to a way out within a locked box programmed to open at the right time. But the box has gone astray. The story opens on Assignment Day in the year 241, when 12-year-olds Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow draw lots for their jobs from the mayor's bag. Lina gets "pipeworks laborer," a job that Doon wants, while Doon draws "messenger," the job that Lina covets, and they trade. Through their perspectives, DuPrau reveals the fascinating details of this subterranean community: as Doon repairs leaks deep down among the Pipeworks, he also learns just how dire the situation is with their malfunctioning generator. Meanwhile, the messages Lina carries point to other sorts of subterfuge. Together, the pair become detectives in search of the truth—part of which may be buried in some strange words that were hidden in Lina's grandmother's closet. Thanks to full-blooded characters every bit as compelling as the plot, Lina and Doon's search parallels the universal adolescent quest for answers. Readers will sit on the edge of their seats as each new truth comes to light.

Connections
Fact from Fiction
On a chart, label one side fact and one side fiction. Have students think of examples they can each label from this book. Examples could include:
Fact
Electricity, generator, river, stone, messenger, pipe repair, moth, vitamins
Fiction
Black sky, bough and hogwash are nonsense words, a door to escape (it is really a cave and a river), History of Ember book, and general customs of the city
Be sure to explain that although this book contains many real elements, the context they are placed in is the ultimate “fantasy.”

A Letter to the Inhabitants of Ember
Pretend you are a Builder. What three pieces of information could you offer to the citizens of Ember to help make their life easier? Write it in a letter form. For realism, students could type it up.
Examples could include: an explanation of how electricity works, a drawing of a hog, a bird, or even a dog, directions for making candles, or instructions for making a terrarium to grow their own food.