The People of Sparks

I rarely get to read Book 2 of anything as I'm so busy covering all the Books 1s out there. Ohhh, what an awesome follow up to City of Ember. Doon and Lina are out, the message they threw down to the others was located, and now the entire town has evacuated Ember.  The Emberites decend upon Sparks. After the initial surprise, the Sparks citizens decide to support their new friends with shelter, supplies and food. As the burden becomes more and more taxxing, resentment grows and groups form in a grass roots rebellion.

There are lots of embedded social studies lessons in here: supply and demand, communities, bartering/trade, and political issues that lead to conflict.  I thought the author did a clever job of painting civilization after war all but eliminated people.

Before reading this book to your class it would be interesting to have the kids make predictions of challenges or benefits to leaving Ember and see how their ideas match up with the author's.