The Three Books of Ember Children’s Fantasy Written by Jeanne DuPrau

Three stories of impending doom, the third the prequel to the first two, capture the reader as one action situation leads adroitly into another. The three Books of Ember, The City of Ember (2003), The People of Sparks (2004) and The Prophet of Yonwood (2006), written by Jeanne DuPrau show a high level of mastery, elegance, style and craft. These are a successful first contribution from this California native who has been an English teacher, an editor and a technical writer – and now an author of children’s literature. And literature is what The Books of Ember are.

Children’s Fantasy, ages 8-12

In The City of Ember our heroine and hero, Lina and Doon have finished their Emberian educations, at the (early!) age of twelve and are being assigned, along with their peers, their first jobs in Ember. Lina gets a hard job and Doon gets a good job, but instead of being pleased, he seeks out a trade, because he has his heart bent on undoing some of the problems that are cropping up in Ember. And it happens that Lina stumbles upon a clue that might be the solution that Doon is searching for.

The City of Ember most certainly seems like an allegory, but don’t be too quick in thinking that the ideas are immediately obvious. You can’t know for sure until you read the second book, The People of Sparks.

Sparks opens with our two friends, Lina and Doon, only they are somewhere they have never been before, and they witness passages of life that they have never witnessed before. The questions that face them are: Can they share this experience with all of Ember? And will the new place be kindly toward them or destroy them? By the end of Sparks, we know these answers, but we don’t know how the City of Ember came to be in the first place. Enter The Third Book of Ember.

The Prophet of Yonwood, the prequel, tells the story of what the world situation was before Ember, why Ember was built and who built Ember. These questions all get answered through the modest means of telling about one girl named Nickie. Nickie is on her way to Yonwood with her aunt to clean up and sell the ancestral house, because Nickie’s great-grandfather has died.

Nickie dreams that the estate will stay in the family and become her next new home, away from New York life and tension. Nickie acquires friends and companions, strives to progress toward her list of goals and learns surprising lessons as the story leads surely to the answers about Ember.

DuPrau writes with an intelligence and style that is engaging and interesting. Her characters win your affection as you race along in their stories. Her plots keep you reading; whether young or old, you can’t put the books down once you pick them up. And scrupulous mothers and fathers will be pleased because there is nothing in the Books of Ember that is crass, vulgar nor objectionable in any way.

The topics and issues are serious, deadly serious, but they are appropriately handle with class and finesse. Jeanne DuPrau’s next books ought to be even better! I give these books, individually and collectively, Four and Half Stars, and fully expect DuPrau’s next books will be all-out Fives.