The Diamond of Darkhold, by Jeanne DuPrau

Title: The Diamond of Darkhold

Author: Jeanne DuPrau.

Published: 2008

Pages: 285

Chapters: 28

Pages per Chapter (on average): 10+

Date Started: Jan. 12-----Date Finished: Jan. 13

My Reading Speed: 142.5 pages a day, or 14 chapters a day.

The Main Characters: Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow return, and for at least a little while the story is told from the point of view from 3 other characters, their friends Kenny, Torren and Lizzie.

My Brief Synopsis: The people of Ember and Sparks try to get through a tough winter and Lina and Doon think it would be a good idea to go back to Ember and see what they can salvage from the dead city. There would probably be lots of food and materials left over from the Exodus of Ember (I made that up myself), plenty to last the rest of the winter. They make the journey, and during their adventures they discover a truly neat invention that probably saves all of human civilization for future generations.

The Conflicts: When the kids climb down into Ember again, they find it inhabited by a mean family known as the Troggs (just the name makes them sound terrible, doesn't it). The Troggs kidnap Doon while Lina escapes. They aren't exactly villains or anything, but they do treat Doon badly. They think they own the city, which they dub Darkhold. I think it's clever that the whole Trogg family is named after major cities. Washton, Kanza, Minny-Apples, Scawgo, Yorick. Yorick also reminds me of a Shakespear line (alas, poor Yorick. I knew him well!). Am I right about that? I can't be sure.

My General Comments: I most definitly think that this was the best book out of the whole series. There is a much bigger sense of adventure, and I love scenes in the middle of the forest. The diamond also lends a sense of mysticality to the story, even though it isn't actually magic, like you might think it is. (Yeah, on the cover the blue diamond looks all shiny and magical, but you're wrong. Oops, I've said too much!)

My Favorite Part: Okay, you can probably guess my favorite part here. Yeah, the ending. But this one was really good. It was definitly a happy and satisfying end to this series. Very fascinating too. It talks about what happens really far into the people of Ember's and Sparks' future, and then it gets really descriptive about the planet. It's really cool. You should read the book just to get to this ending.

My Favorite Things About the Book: Well, it's hard to come up with anything I haven't already mentioned. I just really liked this book in the series, okay?

A Personal Shout Out to Jeanne DuPrau: Like you just heard up there, absolutely loved the ending, Jeanne. I now understand that there's no need for another book in the series. I'm proud of myself for finishing the series within the space of a month, like I said I would. I still hope you write other books, because I like your style.

Here's the link to The People of Sparks's Wikipedia Article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_of_Darkhold

Below is Jeanne Duprau's own website:

http://www.jeanneduprau.com/index.shtml

This link will take you to my review of Jeanne Duprau's first 3 books, The City of Ember, The People of Sparks, and The Prophet of Yonwood.

http://bettinasbooks2009.blogspot.com/2008/12/city-of-ember.html

http://bettinasbooks2009.blogspot.com/2009/01/people-of-sparks.html

http://bettinasbooks2009.blogspot.com/2009/01/prophet-of-yonwood.html

What is your favorite part? If you haven't read this book, sorry for all the spoilers, but you can comment and say if this book review was helpful. If you have read this book, please give me a comment or email me so we can discuss it. This would be the closest I've ever gotten to a book club, you know.

The Prophet of Yonwood, by Jeanne Duprau

Title: The Prophet of Yonwood

Author: Jeanne DuPrau.

Published: 2006

Pages: 290

Chapters: 33

Pages per Chapter (on average): 8+

Date Started: Jan. 11-----Date Finished: Jan. 12

My Reading Speed: 145+ pages a day, or 16.5 chapters a day.

The Main Characters: Nickie Randolph, a young girl who wants to help the world, and Grover Persons, a boy who wants to be a herpetologist (someone who studies snakes.)

My Brief Synopsis: This book is a prequel to The City of Ember and seems to take place a lot closer to the present than the other books. There is talk about a big Disaster approaching, various countries being at war with each other. A woman in Yonwood, North Carolina receives a horrible vision of a future in which the planet is barren and destroyed (hence the title). Nickie has 3 goals when she arrives with her aunt in Yonwood. 1~Convince her aunt to keep the big house her great-grandfather left them instead of selling it. 2~Fall in love during her stay. 3~Help the world in some small, special way.

The Conflicts: The alleged Prophet's friend, Mrs. Beeson, interprets the mumblings as instructions for the people to avoid this terrible future, but that doesn't seem quite right. No singing and dancing? No dogs? Why should people give up these kind of things? Why should the boy Grover give up his snakes, just because the bible says they're supposed to be evil? Why should God care about such trivial things when there's a global crisis?

My General Comments: I'm glad the story's events are closer to now than the others, though it seems like a scary prospect of the future, having so many people worry if the world's going to end. Who knows if we're not so far away from that unless we fix things right now, like global warming or foreign relations? It's serious stuff to think about, but it's always important to keep thinking about the future, how you can help make things better instead of worse.

My Favorite Part: I liked the last chapter very much. I know, it's seeming like a pattern for me. Me liking endings the most. But this was really good. You get to know how all the characters fared in the end and everyone seems happy, but then you realize that events still have to lead up to the point that Ember started up at, and yet it's satisfying. I had a sneaking suspicion that Nickie would grow to be the old lady who wrote the journal Lina and Doon found.

My Favorite Things About the Book: Well, since it's a prequel, I really like that things were cleared up. Of course, I think a tiny bit that the characters were slightly more... childish than Lina and Doon. I don't know, like, Lina and Doon seem a lot braver and more resourceful than Nickie and Grover. That's the only critique I'm going to make, because I did quite like it. Maybe not quite so much as the others, but it was good. Really.

Here's the link to The People of Sparks's Wikipedia Article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prophet_of_Yonwood

Below is Jeanne Duprau's own website:

http://www.jeanneduprau.com/index.shtml

This link will take you to my review of Jeanne Duprau's first 2 books, The City of Ember and The People of Sparks.

http://bettinasbooks2009.blogspot.com/2008/12/city-of-ember.html

http://bettinasbooks2009.blogspot.com/2009/01/people-of-sparks.html

What is your favorite part? If you haven't read this book, sorry for all the spoilers, but you can comment and say if this book review was helpful. If you have read this book, please give me a comment or email me so we can discuss it. This would be the closest I've ever gotten to a book club, you know.

The People of Sparks, by Jeanne Duprau

Title: The People of Sparks.

Author: Jeanne DuPrau.

Published: 2004

Pages: 338

Chapters: 33

Pages per Chapter (on average): 10+

Date Started: Jan. 9-----Date Finished: Jan. 11

My Reading Speed: 112+ pages a day, or 11 chapters a day.

The Main Characters: Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow, the brave kids who saved the city of Ember, are back.

My Brief Synopsis: When the village of Sparks finds out that they have to take care of over 400 refugees of the dead city of Ember, they do the best they can, taking them in, feeding them, teaching them about the outside world.

The Conflicts: There are so many things the Emberites don't know, having lived underground all their lives, so the Sparks people think they're stupid. There's little food to go around, since the population has doubled, but the Emberites think Sparks is holding food back on purpose and starving them. Resentment grows between the two peoples, some arguements break out, and things almost turn into a war. Some people are partly responsible for this, like the 3 leaders of Sparks, a little Sparks boy named Torren, who fuels resentment by pulling a prank and blaming Doon for it, even Tick, an Ember teenager good with mob psychology.

My General Comments: Well, I think it was fascinating to read about this kind of stuff. It seems way set in the future, after some big Disaster. It's funny seeing how the Emberites learn about different normal objects, like a magnet, or a flashlight, or a toy airplane, how each thing is described so accurately it's as if you're learning about these foreign objects. It's also interesting to see how two different races, raised in entirely different conditions, react to each other.

My Favorite Part: I think I liked the ending chapters the best, when there's a truce and everyone promises to be friends. I know, that sounds like it's all happy and dandy, but I really can't think of anything else. It's a very serious storyline, with all the problems and hate and things.

My Favorite Things About the Book: Well, I always like reading about alternate worlds, and I think this one was constructed really well. It totally reminds me of Pendragon. I can almost imagine how the villain of that series, Saint Dane, would manipulate these people into falling into chaos and discord.

A Personal Shout Out to Jeanne DuPrau: You wrote another good one, Jeanne. You're like a genie in a bottle. It's amazing how much you seem to know about how the human mind works. Did you take psychology or something? Simply awesome.

Here's the link to The People of Sparks's Wikipedia Article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_of_Sparks

Below is Jeanne Duprau's own website:

http://www.jeanneduprau.com/index.shtml

This link will take you to my review of Jeanne Duprau's first book, The City of Ember.

http://bettinasbooks2009.blogspot.com/2008/12/city-of-ember.html

What is your favorite part? If you haven't read this book, sorry for all the spoilers, but you can comment and say if this book review was helpful. If you have read this book, please give me a comment or email me so we can discuss it. This would be the closest I've ever gotten to a book club, you know.

The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau

Title: The City of Ember.

Author: Jeanne DuPrau.

Published: 2003-----Made into a movie: 2008

Pages: 270

Chapters: 20

Pages per Chapter (on average):13.5

Date Started: Dec. 31, '08-----Date Finished: Jan. 1, '09

My Reading Speed: 135 pages a day, or 10 chapters a day

The Main Characters: Lina Mayfleet, who is an Ember messanger, and Doon Harrow, who works in the city's Pipeworks.

My Brief Synopsis: There is an alternate world where everybody seems to live underground. Their city is lit by electric lights, but when there's occasionaly a blackout it's completely dark, so no one can do anything until the lights come back. Everything the city needs is stored in giant warehouses, but supplies are running out for the first time in over 200 years. That's where 12 year old Lina and Doon come in. They've been recently added to the work force and they realize that the city can't last for much longer.

The Conflicts: Lina and Doon find lost instructions left by the Builders that will help people get out of Ember and somewhere better, but it seems that the greedy Mayor wants everything to stay the same and tells his guards that the children are spreading vicious rumors. What's worse, the Mayor is stealing all the good supplies from supposedly empty warehouses and not telling anyone about it.

My General Comments: I really liked this story! I always love reading about different worlds. That's why I love Pendragon and The 13th Reality so much. But it's amazing to read about how this city is so underpriveleged; it's like everyone lives in the Great Depression and no one minds, because it's a way of life. No one knows that there's such a thing as a sun or a tree, or food that doesn't come out of a can. Plus I see another example of how the head honcho, the Mayor, is controling the people. See, I read all about this kind of stuff in And the Truth Shall set you Free. Granted, I said it wasn't reading material for the faint at heart, and people might be skeptical about what it contains, (it mentions aliens and mind control) but it's a read you wouldn't regret if you managed to finish it. Anyway, this book was really good and I'm looking forward to reading more in the series. I can hardly wait to see the movie too (I hear the meyor is played by Bill Murray).

My Favorite Part: Well, I think my favorite part would be at the end, when the 2 children reach the land above and are seeing all this natural stuff for the first time. Stars, fresh air, grass, birds, in the day they're even approached by a dog. Very exciting from their point of view. I also like when Lina finds the Instructions, because a lot of the letters in words are missing and I do love a good puzzle.

My Favorite Things About the Book: The main characters remind me of much older kids, so I can forget that they're only 12 and pretend that they're more my age. Lina and Doon also remind me of the main characters from Blue Balliet's book, Chasing Vermeer. Like I said, it is about a different type of world, so it is a good escape for me and it offers me some inspiration for my own book I'm writing.

A Personal Shout Out to Jeanne DuPrau: I believe your books will go very far. I can't wait to see what else you've written about this world. Of course, I'll probably finish the series within a month or so, so I hope you have something else on the burner in the meanwhile. I know you've just released The Diamond of Darkhold, but is there something else you're thinking about adding to this amazing series?

Here's the link to The City of Ember's Wikipedia Article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_Ember

Below is Jeanne Duprau's own website:

http://www.jeanneduprau.com/index.shtml

Below is a trailer video for the City of Ember movie, in case you're interested. I know I am.

What is your favorite part? If you haven't read this book, sorry for all the spoilers, but you can comment and say if this book review was helpful. If you have read this book, please give me a comment or email me so we can discuss it. This would be the closest I've ever gotten to a book club, you know.