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Book Box Favorites
By Hollie Parry
In the book Inkheart,
by Cornelia Funke, the main character Meggie has a special
love of books. She considers her favorite books as old friends
and places them lovingly in a box built for her by her father.
Whenever Meggie moves to a new location or is scared, she finds
solace and familiarity in the books she knows so well. (I really
loved this book and recommend it strongly for the fantasy lover.)
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 After
reading Inkheart, I fell in love with the idea of
a book box, and started one of my own. It contains not only the
books that I have treasured for a long time, but some new titles
as well. My book box stands besides my bed, ready and waiting with
tales of far away places and characters whose lives seems different
from my own, but whose problems I can relate to. I can grab them
at a moment’s notice when I can’t sleep, when I need to unwind,
or when I just want to escape into the beautiful world of books.
Although not everyone may have a book
box, everyone certainly has books that they love to read and re-read.
For the next few months I will be reviewing books that readers
recommend; both new titles and old favorites. If you have a book
box favorite to recommend, I would love to hear from you and will
try to feature it over time in this column. Please write me as
a letter to the editor or directly at hsparry@hotmail.com.
To start with, Melanie from Idaho recommends
The City of Ember and The People of Sparks
by Jeanne DuPrau.
In The City of Ember
the two main characters, Lina and Doon, live in a city where all
of the light is generated by electricity. The people of Ember’s
lives are dictated by the times when the lights of the city are
turned on and off. They have never known the sun, the wind, or
the elements and have lived a continuous existence for many generations
in their city and know nothing different. Lately, the city has
been experiencing frequent blackouts, which have everyone including
Lina and Doon concerned.
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 Lina
and Doon are in their last year of school and are awaiting their
job assignment. Lina hopes that she will be a messenger and have
the chance to run through the streets of Ember delivering exciting
news to the people of the town. Doon wants an assignment to work
underground on the generator, so that he can discover a way to remedy
the blackout situation and save the city. Lina and Doon begin their
jobs and discover that the situation with the city is much worse
than anyone has imagined. They find some instructions that were
written by the builders of their city and after deciphering the
message, realize that it may be up to them to bravely journey into
the unknown and try to save the city.
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This book reminds me of The Giver
by Lois Lowry in many ways and like The Giver
caused me to consider what life would be like if we weren’t given
the gift of Agency in our lives. The City of Ember was
the reason I found Meridian Magazine and I highly recommend it for
all readers.
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The People of Sparksis
a sequel to The City of Ember. In this book, Lina
and Doon meet the people of Sparks. The people of Sparks are much
like the people of Ember in that they live an existence that is
almost completely independent of outside influences. While Lina
and Doon are in Sparks they experience prejudice, intolerance, and
discrimination because they are the outsiders. They must learn to
do things they have not done before and interact with people whose
daily life is much different than life in Ember.
Throughout the book, the author does
a great job of showing readers how strong emotions can lead peaceable
people to war because of different backgrounds, different religions,
or different ideas about how things should be. The People
of Sparks was a book that I read quickly and that kept my
interest. Because it was a sequel, I was excited to find out what
the rest of the story was in Lina and Doon’s lives and think that
you will also enjoy these two books.
Click to Buy
 While
I was revisiting these two books for this column, I also picked
up a third book written by Jeanne DuPrau called The Prophet
of Yonwood. Although this book is a prequel to The
City of Ember, it should be read after the previous books.
In this book the main character, Nickie, travels with her aunt to
the small town of Yonwood. Their purpose in Yonwood is to prepare
Nickie’s great-grandparents’ house for sale. Nickie wishes that
her family would move into the old house instead of selling it.
She believes that in Yonwood they can find a simpler, happy life
and escape the turmoil and political problems that the country is
facing.
Meanwhile, in Yonwood, an old woman
speaks in a strange prophetic-like jumble and the people of the
town decide that she is a prophetess, chosen to save the town from
impending destruction of the world. Led by Mrs. Beeson, the town
starts to make rash decisions and judgments based on the words of
the prophetess that force the people into complying with outrageous
and ridiculous laws. Nickie tries to decide what she believes and
how her young life will be affected by the ideas of Yonwood and
of the world.
Although I did not like this book as
well as the first two, there are some great messages that apply
to what we are facing in our world today. DuPrau weaves her own
political views into the plot of this story, which caused me to
stop and think. This is a good read that is slow to start but ends
well.
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