Library Journal Review
Gr 4-8-Nickie longs to escape from her life in Philadelphia where everything seems to be going wrong. She thinks she has found the perfect haven in her great-grandfather's estate in Yonwood, NC. But the war between the United States and the Phalanx Nations seems imminent and the Church of the Fiery Vision takes over the town, and all her goals seem farther away than ever. In Yonwood, people are not what they seem. The host of characters include a prophet and her interpreter who the townspeople blindly follow, a girl in the closet, a boy obsessed with snakes, and a hermit who can crack open the sky. Jean DuPrau has created an unusual prequel (Random, 2006) to The City of Ember (2003) and The People of Sparks (2004, both Random). Rather than the pre-apocalyptic climate one would expect, the backwoods setting, the humming bracelet, and the robot vacuum cleaner give the novel a strange anachronistic feeling. Becky Ann Baker's depiction of the native North Carolinian accent is believable, and she voices all the characters perfectly. Sound effects enhance the telling. Listeners new to the series will have no problem following along this title can stand on its own. The ending drags a bit as DuPrau tries to wrap up all the subplots. Ember fans will be a little disappointed that only the subtleties in the last chapter, "What Happened Afterward," point to The City of Ember. This timely novel offers astute observations about human relations, the fallibility of human perception, and the danger of over-zealousness.-Ann Crewdson, King County Library System, Issaquah, WA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Gr. 4--7. Set about 50 years before the previous books in the Embers series, this novel focuses on 11-year-old Nickie, who believes her great-grandfather's old mansion in Yonwood, North Carolina, may be a haven from the city wracked with fear of impending war. Unfortunately, the place isn't exactly idyllic. Nickie's experiences in Yonwood further the idea, established in the previous books, about the role of God in human affairs. Why, for example, would God say one thing to the Prophet of Yonwood and another to a prophet halfway around the world?--a provocative question that is certainly apropos to what is happening in the world today. --Sally Estes Copyright 2006 Booklist
Horn Book Review
(Intermediate, Middle School) In a sort of pre-prequel to The City of Ember (rev. 5/03), a girl witnesses the beginning of the end of life on earth as we know it. When Nickie comes with her aunt Crystal to Yonwood to close up and sell her deceased great-grandfather's house, the town is in the grip of an end-times fervor, brought on by both the prospect of world war and the vision and subsequent ""prophecies"" of an elderly resident, Althea Tower. Despite the ominous atmosphere and increasingly rigid grip of fundamentalism on the town, Nickie loves Yonwood, and she launches a plan to convince Crystal to keep the house and persuade her parents to move the family there. The larger themes aren't always sufficiently grounded in the events of the story, and readers in it for the Ember connection will be disappointed that the linkage is made only in a postlude. But Nickie is a sympathetic and believable fulcrum for the story, which is both scary and action-filled. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
With the U.S. teetering on the brink of war and her father off on a secret government job, 11-year-old Nickie's trip with her aunt to the small town where her great-grandfather lived and died is a welcome break from reality. Yonwood, however, is governed by a cabal who interpret for the Prophet, a local woman who has been struck insensible by a fiery vision of doom. Nickie wants to comply with the Prophet's apparent directives, but she struggles to understand how her friendships with Grover, a local boy, and Otis, a lovable mutt, fit (or don't fit) into the Prophet's plans. DuPrau effectively depicts a community in the grip of a millennial fever, the residents eager to appease an angry God in increasingly twisted ways. Less successful are subplots involving Nickie's explorations of her great-grandfather's effects and the weird research of a curmudgeonly astronomer. Thinnest of all is the connection to Ember, which is encapsulated entirely in an afterward. This will disappoint Ember's fans, but those who read this offering with no series expectations will find it a provocative read with an appealingly conflicted protagonist. (Fiction. 10-14) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.