Full spoilers for the entire book below. Proceed with caution.
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Title: The City of Ember
Author: Jeanne DuPrau
Publication Date: May 2003 (novel), 2006 (audio)
Publisher: Random House (novel), ListeningLibrary (audio)
Narrated By: Wendy Dillon
Recording time: 6 hrs and 50 mins
THE PLOT
adapted from wiki
A little more than 200 years before the events of the novel begin, a coalition of architects, scientists, and doctors known as the Builders construct a city named Ember to ensure humanity survives, with the intention that future generations of the city will not know about the outside world or that they live underground. They build the city to last for two centuries, after which the citizens of Ember will evacuate and return to the surface world. The Builders give the first mayor of the city a box with a timed lock set to open after 200 years, containing instructions explaining how to leave Ember. The box is passed successfully from mayor to mayor, until the seventh mayor who, thinking it could contain a cure for the deadly coughing disease he contracted, takes the box home and tries multiple times to break it open, but fails. He then dies before he can return the box to its rightful place or inform the next mayor of its importance.
Many years after the box opened, the city’s supplies are in danger of exhaustion, and its hydroelectric generator is in decay, causing the power to go out intermittently. At their graduation ceremony, young people are assigned jobs by lottery: Lina Mayfleet is assigned the job of “Pipeworks Laborer” and Doon Harrow is given the job of “Messenger”. However, both are displeased with their assigned jobs, so they exchange their assignments and begin work in their respective positions. It is revealed that the seventh mayor was Lina’s great-great-grandfather, and that the box is actually in their own home. By now, the timer has finished counting down and the lock has clicked open. When searching the closet, Lina’s grandmother finds the box, but tosses it aside, not realizing its importance. The opened box is found by Lina’s baby sister, Poppy, who tears up the papers inside.
Lina retrieves the paper fragments from Poppy. Believing its contents were written by the Builders, she reassembles the message as best she can, but is unable to understand what it means on her own, and enlists Doon’s help to decipher it. They discover that the title of the document is “Instructions for Egress”, and presume that the document must show the way out of Ember. The instructions lead to a hidden room located in the Pipeworks, an underground network of tunnels that carry the city’s plumbing pipes. Lina and Doon discover that the room contains hundreds of boats, matches, and candles to create portable light, something never successfully created in Ember. The Builders intended for the citizens of Ember to board the boats and be carried down the river that flows underground throughout the city into the outside world.
Lina’s grandmother dies shortly after the discovery of the document, and Lina and Poppy move in with a neighbor, Mrs. Murdo. At work, Doon discovers that the mayor of Ember and a storeroom worker named Looper have been stealing supplies. Doon and Lina report the crime to the guards, who, unknown to them, are in cahoots with the mayor and declare the two as criminals, posting notices for their arrest. Doon and Lina agree to meet in the Pipeworks and escape Ember in the boats, but Lina is arrested and taken to the mayor, who plans to throw her in jail. Suddenly, a blackout occurs, allowing her to escape without being seen; she meets Doon in the Pipeworks with Poppy. Lina, Doon, and Poppy escape in a boat via the river. When the boat stops, they learn the origin of Ember from a diary left by one of its original colonists.
The trio climb out of the city and emerge onto the surface. After exploring the above world, they find a tunnel with a steep drop into a cave. Below, they see Ember’s lights and realize they had lived underground for years. To alert the rest of the city about how to leave Ember, they throw a packet with a letter detailing the path to exit down to the center of Ember. The packet is found by Mrs. Murdo.
My Review
The City of Ember is one of the best children’s lit books I’ve read in a very long time. Jeanne DuPrau’s plot is compelling from beginning to end, she layers that with fantastic world-building, and somehow, despite this being a dystopian apocalyptic novel with a protagonist who is an orphan, she manages to make the whole thing relatively friendly for young readers. It takes incredible skill to relay weighty material without placing too much of that on the emotions of the readers, but she succeeds.
One thing I enjoyed in particular was the character building of the two primary protagonists – Lina and Doon. They’re both flawed. Lina is a bit dreamy and flighty, whereas Doon is perhaps too serious and with a temper problem. We get to see both of them grow throughout the book, and DuPrau does a really great job of contrasting the two in interesting ways such that we get to see that happen because of their interactions together.
One other thing I really enjoyed was how DuPrau put together the big reveal at the end of the story. As an adult reader, and with the help of the very short book introduction, I knew something about this city was not right. However, the author hid the specifics of Ember’s situation really well. I had an idea that they were underground, due to the way the community dealt with light, but those clues are much more obvious with the advantage of hindsight. I enjoyed, in particular, the moments of realization for Doon and Lina, as the novel ends, that their city was in a deep cave. This was visually painted so well, with the two looking down on the city from high up above on the surface. I loved their method for sharing with the town where they are now, too, though they are very lucky they didn’t fatally hit someone with their message.
The City of Ember was nominated for many awards, several fo which it won:
Nominated to 28 State Award Lists!
An American Library Association Notable Children’s Book
A New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing Selection
A Kirkus Reviews Editors’ Choice
A Child Magazine Best Children’s Book
A Mark Twain Award Winner
A William Allen White Children’s Book Award Winner
From the standpoint of its reading grade level, this book is probably at a late elementary through middle school level. I mentioned above the weightiness of the plot, but it bears repeating. In the book, the protagonist Lina is an orphan, living with her grandmother and much younger sister Poppy as the story begins. We realize quickly in the story that the grandmother is going through significant cognitive decline and she dies mid-story. In my opinion, this is handled carefully enough to be digested by child readers, however, a younger or more sensitive child might struggle with those story elements to some degree. I did appreciate form the story, though, that even in the midst of that Lina and her sister were being taken care of. The society of Ember did not abandon them. They went to live with a neighbor, Mrs. Murdo.
As a blind reader, I “read” this with my ears and the help of Wendy Dillon, the audiobook narrator. I thought her performance was superb. If you’re going to tell a post apocalyptic story to children, it is important that they feel safe while engaged with the material. Dillon’s performance exuded warmth and safety.
Overall, I strongly recommend this book to others. I plan to finish the series and check out the movie, too.
Have you read The City of Ember? If so, what did you think?
