Scan barcode
k_lee_reads_it's review against another edition
3.0
A futuristic tale of three children on a quest in Zimbawae. I think it is a 3.5 star book.
noodelydia's review against another edition
4.0
Maybe I don't understand enough about African and Zimbabewian cultures to understand everything about this book, but just reading it gives me this sense of culture and tradition being all around everywhere in the story. Really an interesting read.
lpm100's review against another edition
5.0
5.0 out of 5 stars African Dystopian Fiction. (A parent's review.)
Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2018
Verified Purchase
Here is another installment in the list of books that I am reading in order to build a library for my sons so that they can have a good selection when they are of age whose contents I have already checked.
This book reminds me of a lot of many others that I've read.
1. The House of the Scorpion
2. The Giver (Giver Quartet)
3. 1984 (Signet Classics)
It is/ these are dystopian, but the thing that makes it different to so many other dystopian books is that the background/ setting is Africa. (It's pretty novel when you think about it. Africa is such an ignored place that if a person wanted to write almost anything centered there, then they're going into a field that is pretty wide open.)
Farmer has written dystopian fiction before, but her other book ( The House of the Scorpion ) centered in the Americas and this one centers in Africa.
There are a lot of themes that can be discussed with a child of moderate intelligence.
a. Oversheltered children.
b. Children having the best brought out of them.
c. There are good people in all races. (The She Elephant was the queen of a land of swamp people, but she was nice in her own way. The mother of the Praise Singer was a not so good white person but the Praise Singer himself was a good person.)
d. Environmental degradation
e. Energy scarcity. (There was an "energy crisis of the 21st century" mentioned in the book.)
f. Technology and its misuses.
g. Wealth gaps within a country. (The differences here were just astounding.)
There are a lot of interesting themes that are a bit uncomfortable, and doubly so because these bad things are associated with black people. (My kids are half black.)
a. Military junta governments (The father is a general and his children don't live in the same poverty as the vlei people.)
b. African strongmen (Some aspects of the "soft power" of The General are highlighted.)
c. African state-sponsored corruption (Gondwanna in the book is a stand-in for Sudan, and the author tells us as much in the notes to the book. It's like she is saying that if Sudan wasn't the corrupt agent, then there would just be another state that was doing the same thing.)
d. Tribal warfare/ Tribalism. (People are from "The English tribe" or "The Portuguese Tribe.")
e. The General Immutability of African Culture. (Things that we see today and so the author seems to be trying to tell us that things *will be* that way into the future)
The prose is clean (and the author goes a long way to not have any profanity in the text.) She has a wonderful imagination-- although I think she did a bit better in "House of Scorpions."
Verdict: Worth the time. Worth the price. Strongly recommended. (But if you are to only read one Nancy Farmer book, then "House of the Scorpion" would be even better.)
Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2018
Verified Purchase
Here is another installment in the list of books that I am reading in order to build a library for my sons so that they can have a good selection when they are of age whose contents I have already checked.
This book reminds me of a lot of many others that I've read.
1. The House of the Scorpion
2. The Giver (Giver Quartet)
3. 1984 (Signet Classics)
It is/ these are dystopian, but the thing that makes it different to so many other dystopian books is that the background/ setting is Africa. (It's pretty novel when you think about it. Africa is such an ignored place that if a person wanted to write almost anything centered there, then they're going into a field that is pretty wide open.)
Farmer has written dystopian fiction before, but her other book ( The House of the Scorpion ) centered in the Americas and this one centers in Africa.
There are a lot of themes that can be discussed with a child of moderate intelligence.
a. Oversheltered children.
b. Children having the best brought out of them.
c. There are good people in all races. (The She Elephant was the queen of a land of swamp people, but she was nice in her own way. The mother of the Praise Singer was a not so good white person but the Praise Singer himself was a good person.)
d. Environmental degradation
e. Energy scarcity. (There was an "energy crisis of the 21st century" mentioned in the book.)
f. Technology and its misuses.
g. Wealth gaps within a country. (The differences here were just astounding.)
There are a lot of interesting themes that are a bit uncomfortable, and doubly so because these bad things are associated with black people. (My kids are half black.)
a. Military junta governments (The father is a general and his children don't live in the same poverty as the vlei people.)
b. African strongmen (Some aspects of the "soft power" of The General are highlighted.)
c. African state-sponsored corruption (Gondwanna in the book is a stand-in for Sudan, and the author tells us as much in the notes to the book. It's like she is saying that if Sudan wasn't the corrupt agent, then there would just be another state that was doing the same thing.)
d. Tribal warfare/ Tribalism. (People are from "The English tribe" or "The Portuguese Tribe.")
e. The General Immutability of African Culture. (Things that we see today and so the author seems to be trying to tell us that things *will be* that way into the future)
The prose is clean (and the author goes a long way to not have any profanity in the text.) She has a wonderful imagination-- although I think she did a bit better in "House of Scorpions."
Verdict: Worth the time. Worth the price. Strongly recommended. (But if you are to only read one Nancy Farmer book, then "House of the Scorpion" would be even better.)
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
This book was a BLAST to read. It has its flaws to be sure, the most noteworthy of which is that the characters are really secondary actors to the primary focus, which is the setting—but oh man, what a setting. The plot reminded me a lot of one of those folkloric tales full of stock elements and repetitive circumstances—the kids are kidnapped, escape; kidnapped, escape; kidnapped, escape; ad infinitum—but I had so much fun tearing through it in around an hour; it's a pretty fast read, at only around 300 pages. (I don't know if that's short to anyone else, but it's pretty short for me, comparatively speaking.) I could easily see this being a really fun movie, either for kids (the relatively low-stakes plot and easy-to-understand premise would work pretty well) or for adults (the themes are very fucking dark at times).
The story is set in a futuristic Zimbabwean locale, which intrigued me because it's rare, in my experience, that a white American author would set a science fiction story in... well, Southern Africa. Of course, I'm hardly qualified to judge how well a book from 1994 conveyed the reality of Zimbabwe, but for what it's worth, Nancy Farmer seems to have done her research: she spent quite a while in Zimbabwe working as an entomologist, and the portrayal of Zimbabwe in the book isn't just a randomly picked setting—it makes sense, ties in to the plot, and influences the story and the characters. Set in 2194, a near-futuristic time, the story follows the three children of General Matsika after they sneak out of their smart house (yes, I too was reminded of Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rains) and immediately get into trouble. The children travel through all sorts of places, encountering a wide variety of people and elements of Zimbabwean culture both traditional and modern, before returning home. Equally prevalent in the novel are the futuristic elements characteristic of sci-fi, advanced technology and AI and the like, and very real dangers threatening countries like Zimbabwe, resource depletion, global warming, and the aftereffects of colonialism on societies.
The plot, as it goes, isn't all that complex: the children aren't really too interesting or sympathetic, considering how many times they seem to have to be taught that they've lived incredibly sheltered lives thanks to their father's wealth, and the titular Ear, Eye, and Arm—previously unemployed amateur detectives with unusual abilities as a result of nuclear and chemical pollution—are comedically terrible at the job they were hired to do. But the worldbuilding makes up for it, meticulously crafted and lovingly populated with a real abundance of fascinating forays into different customs and lifestyles.
The story is set in a futuristic Zimbabwean locale, which intrigued me because it's rare, in my experience, that a white American author would set a science fiction story in... well, Southern Africa. Of course, I'm hardly qualified to judge how well a book from 1994 conveyed the reality of Zimbabwe, but for what it's worth, Nancy Farmer seems to have done her research: she spent quite a while in Zimbabwe working as an entomologist, and the portrayal of Zimbabwe in the book isn't just a randomly picked setting—it makes sense, ties in to the plot, and influences the story and the characters. Set in 2194, a near-futuristic time, the story follows the three children of General Matsika after they sneak out of their smart house (yes, I too was reminded of Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rains) and immediately get into trouble. The children travel through all sorts of places, encountering a wide variety of people and elements of Zimbabwean culture both traditional and modern, before returning home. Equally prevalent in the novel are the futuristic elements characteristic of sci-fi, advanced technology and AI and the like, and very real dangers threatening countries like Zimbabwe, resource depletion, global warming, and the aftereffects of colonialism on societies.
The plot, as it goes, isn't all that complex: the children aren't really too interesting or sympathetic, considering how many times they seem to have to be taught that they've lived incredibly sheltered lives thanks to their father's wealth, and the titular Ear, Eye, and Arm—previously unemployed amateur detectives with unusual abilities as a result of nuclear and chemical pollution—are comedically terrible at the job they were hired to do. But the worldbuilding makes up for it, meticulously crafted and lovingly populated with a real abundance of fascinating forays into different customs and lifestyles.
bronwyn_bryan's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
blacksentai's review against another edition
3.0
This is a pretty good book. It's cute. I'll leave it at that.
erinchekal's review against another edition
5.0
Wonderful science fiction. I have brought this book home for my son to read a few times. He always passed on it. We listened to the audio book and we both loved it.
andynorth's review against another edition
2.0
Didn't finish this one! I wanted to re-visit it because I remember enjoying it as a kid, and most Newbery award winners have has something to offer me even when re-visiting it as an adult. In this case, I think the selling point (Newbery-wise) is that the book incorporates afro-futurism, takes place in a future Zimbabwe, and has non-white protagonists. But those elements felt like shallow set-dressing to me as an adult; they're so non-central to the story that very little would change by setting this on a different planet and updating the relevant references. The fact that the characters live in Africa rather than on Mars is as impactful as the characters carrying "Nirvana guns" instead of pistols. I think it would still be a good read for the intended age group, though!
dimagnolia's review against another edition
5.0
I’m so glad I found and re-read this book! I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of YA dystopian novels, mysteries, fantasy, scifi… all the adventures. Such a fun read with a very unique twist (or several)