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Summary
Summary
The country is at war, terrorists strike at random, widespread rationing is in effect, and the power grid is down. But thirteen-year-old Sky Brightman is remarkably untouched by it all. She lives off the grid on sixty acres of rural New Mexico ranch land with chores to do and horses to ride and no television or internet to bring disturbing news into her family's adobe house. Sky's schoolmates think she's a little weird.
Then a string of mysterious arrests begins, and her new friend, Kareem, becomes a target. Sky is finally forced to confront the world in all its complexity. Summoning her considerable courage and ingenuity, she takes a stand against injustice. With humor, hope, and fierce determination, she proves that even a child can change the world.
Author Notes
Diane Stanley was born in 1943 and was raised in Abilene, Texas. She later attended both Trinity University and Johns Hopkins University.
Her portfolio of children's book illustrations was creative enough for her to begin publication in 1978. She became an art director for G.P. Putnam & Sons and later began retelling and illustrating classic children's books.
Stanley has revamped the fairy tale, Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter and has also researched the children's biographies Cleopatra and Leonardo Da Vinci. She also illustrated her mother's book, The Last Princess.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Horn Book Review
Sky experiences seventh grade in a world where 9/11 was just the beginning of years of increasingly destructive terrorism. Her off-the-grid family enters the war for justice by hiding Sky's Middle Eastern classmate. Bombings and breakdown of utility services are mentioned in passing, keeping the focus on Sky, her friend, and timely discussion of civil liberties and interdependence. Copyright 2010 of The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In this provocative title, award-winning author Stanley asks young readers to consider what courage might look like in an America under psychological and physical siege. Growing up off the grid on a New Mexico ranch, Sky is cocooned from the country's escalating fears over war and terrorist attacks. Then her friend Kareem is falsely arrested at the local Home Depot, setting off a chain of events that utterly upends Sky's sense of security: police arrest Kareem's parents, Kareem goes into hiding, and Sky is interrogated by the police about her role in Kareem's disappearance. As fears mount, the U.S. slips deeper into anarchy, and foreign-born American families pay the price as they are rounded up and interned. Sky and her family fight back the only way they can by hiding and protecting Kareem on their vast, isolated ranch. To categorize this novel solely as science fiction would be wishful thinking, and parallels to our contemporary times appear on every page. The recognizable adult characters, from the truly good to the fearful to the insidiously evil, are drawn straight from today's headlines, while the young people manifest a courage few can emulate. Readers will have much to discuss after finishing this beautifully written, disturbing book.--Bradburn, Frances Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-Living on a New Mexico ranch, Sky Brightman and her family are largely removed from the disturbing news of the war on terror and are sheltered from images of death and destruction as suicide bombers wage war on the United States. Then, when Kareem, a seventh-grade Middle Eastern classmate, is picked on by bullies, and his doctor father is detained by federal agents, Sky resolves to stand by the boy. In a scene that stretches credulity, Sky and her mother collaborate to remove Kareem surreptitiously from school. They safeguard him in their home and build a secret place for him in the barn in case he should need one. Kareem goes into hiding when suspicious Homeland Security agents come looking for him. In the meantime, an attack knocks out the power over a good portion of the country. When Homeland Security comes again, Kareem is spotted and knows he must turn himself in; the president has ordered the DHS to hold detainees until the war ends. Four months later, at the state's Land of Enchantment essay award ceremony, Sky reads from Kareem's poignant journal and is heartened by the audience's reception. The mood of the novel is muted by the spare detail. The main characters are well rendered and likable, and, in her portrayal of the earth-centered, nurturing Brightman family, Stanley succeeds in delivering the message that hope trumps fear.-Susan W. Hunter, Riverside Middle School, Springfield, VT (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In Stanley's latest, the post-9/11 future has taken a dark turn. The war on terror has gone on for years, causing food rationing and an oil shortage. Terrorists have ramped up attacks on U.S. soil, and the constant red-alert days have kept anxiety levels on high. Then it happens: Homeland Security starts rounding up "suspects"--anyone of Middle-Eastern descent--and placing them in detention centers. Standing against the fear and hatred is seventh grader Sky Brightman, whose unconventional, off-the-grid upbringing has given her a belief that love conquers all. The Brightman family's 60-acre, self-sufficient New Mexican ranch, isolated from the constant news feeds from television, radios and the Internet, is a balm, as are their ecumenical daily blessings to heal the troubled universe. When officers come after her classmate Kareem, Sky resolves to rescue him. This page-turner subtly builds an all-too-believable near future, sowing just enough clues to keep readers informed and rarely descending into blunt exposition. It skillfully captures the irrational fear of a public under siege while giving kids a modern-day, almost-just-like-them female hero who champions hope. Inspiring. (Thriller. 10-14)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
