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Summary
Summary
A Michael L. Printz Honor Book
In Sally Gardner's stunning novel, set in a ruthless regime, an unlikely teenager risks all to expose the truth about a heralded moon landing.
What if the football hadn't gone over the wall. On the other side of the wall there is a dark secret. And the devil. And the Moon Man. And the Motherland doesn't want anyone to know. But Standish Treadwell -- who has different-colored eyes, who can't read, can't write, Standish Treadwell isn't bright -- sees things differently than the rest of the "train-track thinkers." So when Standish and his only friend and neighbor, Hector, make their way to the other side of the wall, they see what the Motherland has been hiding. And it's big...One hundred very short chapters, told in an utterly original first-person voice, propel readers through a narrative that is by turns gripping and darkly humorous, bleak and chilling, tender and transporting.
Author Notes
Sally Gardner is an award-winning author whose novels have sold more than 1.5 million copies in the U.K. and have been translated into twenty-two languages. She is dyslexic and is an avid spokesperson for dyslexia. "I strongly believe that dyslexia is like a Rubik's Cube," she says. "It takes time to work out how to deal with it, but once you do, it can be the most wonderful gift." Sally Gardner lives in London.
Julian Crouch is a director and designer whose career has spanned theater, opera, film, and television. He is currently designing Big Fish for Broadway and Cinderella for the Dutch National Ballet. Julian Crouch lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Just when it seems that there's nothing new under the dystopian sun, Gardner (The Red Necklace) produces an original and unforgettable novel about a boy in a totalitarian society who risks everything in the name of friendship. Standish Treadwell narrates in short, fast-paced chapters, illustrated by theatrical designer/director Crouch with flipbook-style images of rats, flies, and maggots: creatures that represent the oppressive forces at work in the Motherland, a brutish government intent on being first to the moon, at whatever cost to its citizens. Fifteen-year-old Standish is dyslexic (as is the author), making him a target of bullies, which is the least of his problems. He lives with his resourceful grandfather in Zone Seven, but the Motherland has taken away his parents, as well as his best friend, Hector. The loss of his parents has created a hole Standish cannot fill; the disappearance of Hector leaves Standish unprotected at school and bereft of a friend who saw past Standish's disability to recognize his intelligence. "I believe the best thing we have is our imagination," Standish recalls Hector telling him, "and you have that in bucketloads." Though Standish's grandfather keeps the boy purposefully in the dark about many things, Standish figures out one of the government's big secrets on his own, and he concocts a brave and personally risky plan to reveal it. Parts of the story are very hard to read-early on, a classmate is beaten to death by a teacher in the schoolyard-but the violence asks readers to consider what the world would be like if certain events in history had turned out differently. Gardner does a masterful job of portraying Standish's dyslexia through the linguistic swerves of his narration, and although the ending is pure heartbreak, she leaves readers with a hopeful message about the power of one boy to stand up to evil. Ages 12-up. Agent: Catherine Clarke, Felicity Bryan Associates. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Gardner (I, Coriander, rev. 8/05) here imagines an alternate, dystopic UK: a repressive 1950s regime that calls itself the Motherland, abhors "impurities," is led by a man with a bad haircut, and consigns undesirables to the derelict housing of Zone Seven. That's where fifteen-year-old Standish Treadwell and his Gramps survive, thanks to Gramps's ingenuity at reusing and bartering. Out of this life of hard-won subsistence and oppressive schooling, Standish tells the story of his friendship with "supernova bright" Hector next door -- Hector, who realizes that dyslexic Standish may not have a train-track mind, but has imagination "in bucketloads." When Hector and his parents disappear, taken by the authorities, Standish sets out to rescue and avenge him, and uncovers a grotesque government hoax. Standish's tale has the terse, energetic tension of poetry; his phrases and sentences roll out with irony, tenderness, horror, or love, but always vividly. "The place smelled of over-boiled cabbage, cigarettes, and corruption," he notes of his school; or, "What he was doing there I hadn't a snowflake of an idea." Even the chronology of Standish's story depends on a rearrangement of order, where present, past, and future stand side by side. Most appealing of all, however, is Standish Treadwell himself: tender, incisive, brave, and determined, he takes a stand and treads well. Frequent pencil illustrations that function almost as a flipbook underscore the story's subtext of the unending cycle of violence and death. deirdre f. baker (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The year is 1956. In an unnamed country of obvious allegorical weight, the totalitarian government of the Motherland keeps the impure in ghettos where they live off scraps and hope not to be dragged away to camps. Standish, 15, lives in Zone 7, a nasty place from which school is no respite there cruel teachers beat students and, on this particular day, kill one. Standish is expelled in the aftermath, and the next step for him may be the camps. Standish, however, knows a secret. The Motherland is hyping a moon landing that will prove to the world that they reign supreme with interstellar weaponry. But it's a fake: just across the park, accessible via a hidden tunnel, is a building that houses an artificial moon set. And one of the so-called astronauts has shown up in Standish's cellar missing his tongue. Gardner snatches elements from across history to create something uniquely her own: a bleak, violent landscape of oppression, as well as the seeds of hope that sprout there, revealed in Standish's tenacious, idiosyncratic voice over 100 short chapters. Crouch's frequent sketches of flies, rats, and maggots seem unrelated at first, but they emerge as further metaphor for the taking. This is alt-history second; first, it is an eerie, commanding drama.--Kraus, Daniel Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-In Gardener's dystopian novel (Candlewick, 2013), 15-year old Standish Treadwell and his grandfather live in Zone Seven, the lowest-ranked district of the totalitarian government of the Motherland, and try to survive after Standish's parents disappear. The Motherland is obsessed with an upcoming moon landing which will establish their superiority over other countries. Meanwhile, food is scarce and everyone is watched constantly. Standish and his grandfather befriend a mysterious family that moves next door. Hector, the 15 year-old son, becomes Standish's protector when he's bullied at school. The boys find fun in an old soccer ball, build a spaceship in the attic, and wonder what lays on the forbidden other side of the big wall behind their houses. When they find out, their lives are irrevocably changed. Standish finds refuge from his bleak surroundings in a glorious imagination and the courage to make a final stand against the oppressive regime in which he lives in the end. Sixteen-year old English actor Robert Madge does an outstanding job portraying Standish in the first-person narration. Standish's voice is strong throughout, whether he is being taunted because he has trouble reading and writing (the author is dyslexic) or dreaming about his imaginary planet. Violent, dark, yet strangely hopeful, this audiobook will stay with listeners for a long time.-Julie Paladino, East Chapel Hill High School, NC (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Standish Treadwell, 15, has lost parents, neighbors, best friend: All disappeared from Zone Seven, a post-war occupied territory, into the hellish clutches of the Motherland. Now a new horror approaches. Though it's unnamed, the Motherland's distinguishing features scream "Nazi Germany." Life in Zone Seven is a dreary round of familiar miseries. Standish and Hector spin fantasies about the far-off tantalizing consumer culture they glimpsed on television (now banned), but they lack a vision of the future beyond vague dreams of rescue. Food is scarce; surveillance constant. Loved ones vanish; teachers beat children to death while classmates look on. Abetting the powerful, residents inform on their neighbors for food. Kindness revealed is punished; solutions are final. Call it Auschwitz lite. Why the brutal state bothers to educate those, like Standish, labeled "impure" (his eyes are of different colors and he's dyslexic), is unclear. Despite short chapters and simple vocabulary and syntax, the detailed, sadistic violence makes this is a poor choice for younger readers, while oversimplified characters, a feeble setting and inauthentic science make it a tough sell for older ones. In this nuance- and complexity-free world, scarcity rules. Standish dreams of "ice-cream-colored Cadillacs" and drinking "Croca-Colas." Wealth-disparity, climate change and childhood obesity don't exist. Despite intentions, this tale never connects past to present, resulting in a book with a message but no resonance. (Speculative fiction. 13 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
I wasn't listening to the lesson when the note arrived from the headmaster's office. Because me and Hector were in the city across the water, in another country where the buildings don't stop rising until they pin the clouds to the sky. Where the sun shines in Technicolor. Life at the end of a rainbow. I don't care what they tell us, I've seen it on the TV. They sing in the streets - they even sing in the rain, sing while dancing round a lamp post.This is the dark ages. We don't sing.But this was the best daydream I'd had since Hector and his family vanished. Mostly I tried not to think about Hector. Instead I liked to concentrate on imagining myself on our planet, the one Hector and I had invented. Juniper.It was better than being worried sick about what had happened to him. Except this was one of the best daydreams I'd had for a long time. It felt as if Hector was near me again. We were driving round in one of those huge, ice-cream-coloured Cadillacs. I could almost smell the leather. Bright blue, sky blue, leather seats blue. Hector in the back. Me with my arm resting on the chrome of the wound-down window, my hand on the wheel, driving us home for Croca-Colas in a shiny kitchen with a checked tablecloth and a garden that looks as if the grass was Hoovered.That's when I became vaguely aware of Mr Gunnell saying my name.'Standish Treadwell. You are wanted in the headmaster's office.' Excerpted from Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
