Newbery Honor Award winner RUTH WHITE's out of this world story celebrates personal freedom and individual differences. Readers will relish its gross uniqueness. Everybody does.
Gr 4-6-Ruther White, best known for her Newbery Honor book Belle Praeter's Boy (Farrar, 1996), departs from her usual genre of historical fiction to spin a tale (Delacorte, 2011) of alternate reality, aliens, and dystopia. Maggie and David Blue are refugees from another world, trying to live like normal humans in an ordinary American town. When townspeople begin to suspect their true identity, they escape in a space ship with their mother and grandfather and end up on an alternate Earth in a place called Fashion City. At first their new home seems like a nice place with no crime or sickness, but soon the Blue family realizes that utopia comes at a high price. This novel has many of the elements found in teen and adult dystopian novels-brainwashing, sedating drugs, and the killing of old people-but they are toned down for a younger audience. The story is written in the first person in alternating chapters from the points of view of David, 15, and Maggie,11. Becca Battoe and Jessie Bernstein fluently and with engaging interpretation voice Maggie and David respectively. While Battoe's reading sounds age-appropriate, Bernstein's attempt at a teenage voice is not quite as convincing. An entertaining listen for young people transitioning to teen literature.-Donna Cardon, Provo City Library, UT (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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