There are good lessons here for space settlement advocates to keep in mind. If your local power plant was knocked out, could you fix it, even if someone gave you the technical drawings? I doubt you could do it in complete darkness! Without a knowledgeable teacher, it may not even be possible. Then again, if everything is provided to you, there may not be much incentive to invent or improve things. After 200 years, though, I think someone would have found a way to make oil from plants in the greenhouse and use it in a lamp, or develop a battery from spare parts out of some machine. At first I found this unbelievable, but then I considered that they would lack the raw materials with which to experiment. The people of Ember do not even have portable lights to use to explore the darkness beyond their city. People in an artificial environment with minimal knowledge of the science and technology that sustains them are probably doomed, at least in the long-term. Many aspects of the story resonate with problems that may be faced by a space settlement that loses its connection to the outside universe. Lina pastes the pieces together and, with the help of Doon, and thwarted by the corrupt mayor and his police, seeks to solve the mystery of the “Instructions for Egress” and save the people of Ember. The senile grandmother uncovers the box in the closet and Lina’s baby sister chews the fragile document inside. The former mayor died without passing on the box to his successor. The grandmother is the daughter of a former mayor-who, the reader was told in the prologue, was supposed to pass along a special box that would open after 200 years and tell the inhabitants of Ember what to do when their supplies ran out. We soon learn that Lina’s parents died of some sickness, and she and her baby sister live with their grandmother. He accuses the mayor of covering up the fact that the city is in danger of collapse and is running out of critical supplies such as light bulbs. Doon explains that he wants to be underground because that is where the generator is-and he hopes to find and fix the problem that is causing ever-more-frequent blackouts. A boy named Doon, who drew messenger, trades with her. Lina longs to be a messenger, but as the story begins, she draws pipeworks instead. Artificial lights provide their sole illumination.Īt age 12, the children of Ember graduate from school and take jobs maintaining their community. The city is surrounded by total blackness. She eats canned food supplemented with some fresh items grown in a community greenhouse. She knows only that it was built 200-some years ago and stocked with everything the residents needed to live comfortably. Twelve-year-old Lina does not know where her city is, or how it came to exist. The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau is an engaging mystery that could easily be set inside an abandoned underground space settlement. Both remain a mystery.Reading Level: Ages 9-12 NSS Amazon link for this book Lina and Doon leave the Pipeworks after that, discussing who the mysterious person might be and how he got a key.They get a glimpse of someone's leg, a dark coat, and messy hair.A key turns, a latch opens, and at that point Doon and Lina try to take a peek. There's a scraping noise and a thud, followed by slow footsteps.Suddenly, they hear someone coming, They retreat to the lit tunnel and hide, looking around the corner and listening.When they come to the closed-off tunnel, Lina can feel the doorknob to the locked room for herself (there's no light in that tunnel, so there's nothing to see).Doon hands Lina a slicker and some boots when she arrives, and together they slog through some tunnels.Lina asks if she can come check it out with him, and he agrees to let her into the Pipeworks the next day after everyone leaves at quitting time.He says that he's seen some closed off tunnels, though they're not near the river (the word "river" was there in the message). Doon is intrigued by the box with its complicated latch, and as soon as he sees the message, he agrees that it looks important.Murdo is watching Poppy, since Granny had gone to bed earlier. Doon tags along with Lina backs to her home.She has tracked him down because she has something important to show him. Lina says Doon's father had told her that he was in the library.
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