The City of Ember

Every day we have a homeroom class, and each day we practice Silent Sustained Reading (SSR). This is to make up for the fact that we cannot afford to have a reading class these days — the required silent reading period during homeroom (apparently) makes up for this loss in the educational system.

So we teachers have to find ways to make that time period useful, enjoyable, and/or meaningful. Some teachers just make the students read silently. Some teachers show movies on DVD without sound, and require the students to read along with the subtitles. I do a little of all three.

A few weeks ago, though, I started reading a book to my class, a book that one of last year’s students bought for me — during the school book sales, teachers are allowed to post wish lists of the books they’d like to have in the classroom, and sometime the kids and their parents are generous enough to purchase at least one of those books for their teachers.

Last year, one of my student bought me a copy of the book, The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau. Since I got the book the chances to read it have been few and far between, and though my students started out the year by bringing in their own books for SSR I wasn’t too worried. But once I saw the students refusing to read, I decided it was time to whip out this book that looked interesting, but which I hadn’t read.

A few students had read this book, and said: “It’s totally awesome! You gotta read it to us!” And that was enough to get the rest of the class hooked. It was enough to get me hooked because I want to get my students hooked by stories, hooked by books. I want them reading for pleasure. I want them reading to explore new authors, new worlds. So, I’ve been reading this book for the past few weeks.

And guess what happened? The students were rapt. Not everyone, but enough kids to make the reading worthwhile. It would have been a little more enjoyable if I had a classroom set — to have the kids follow along as I read — but one was enough, and I give that credit to Jeanne Duprau.

The City of Ember is about a small group of people who live in complete darkness, save for a few electric lights which fill their houses and corner the ends of the city streets. The city is small, and its history goes back several hundred years, but the only real history any member of the city has relates to a group of people called “The Builders.”

As far as the inhabitants of Ember know, “The Builders” created Ember from nothing. It just exists. And life in this city is difficult — the children go to school until age twelve, and then they enter the workforce to fulfill the needs of the city’s population. Some send messages about the town, some work in a place called “the pipeworks” (a place in the city where power is generated to run those elctric lights in the houses and on streetcorners), some work in shops to regulate the handing-out of necessary food and lightbulbs to the inhabitants of the city.

These are difficult jobs to undertake at the age of 12, but the major characters of this story, Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow, do so with a sense of urgency — the city seems to be running out of supplies. People survive on plants which can grow in a nocturnal environment; clothing is scarece and is therefore recycled over and over and over, leaving hte inhabitants to wear dingly, threadbare items.

And lately the power has been flikering in and out — sometimes for a few seconds, and sometimes for minutes on end. There’s no way to tell when it might go out forever.

Lina and Doon worry about the possibility of life without life, and they work together to find a solutions to the problems of the city.

I’d like to not give anything away, as The City of Ember is a wonderful story, and one that kept my students guessing along the way — as I read, a student would raise his/her hand and say: “I’ve got a prediction! I think this city exists because of some kind of war…like, they had to go live here because life on earth wasn’t safe.”

“I’ve got a prediction — we’ll find out that everyone’s living in a bubble; that the government forced them to live there for some scientific purpose.”

As we neared the end, several students actually complained that I stopped reading. Several stole the book from my room to finish it on their own — which, I must say, is a wonderful thing to see…kids so involved in a story, they won’t wait for the end to come to them. Several went to the school library to check out a copy.

The story ended beautifully and leaves a space open for the reader to explore both a sequel and a prequel.

The best part, though is that we found DuPrau’s Website, and the fact that we can contact her via her personal email address.

One of my students got so far as to begin writing: “Your book rocks!” before the bell rang and he had to run.

I think I will have the kids write to her. I’d like to see what they have to say.