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Summary
Summary
In the year 2170 an underground abolitionist movement fights for the freedom of cyborgs and clones, who are treated no better than slavesThe Cyborg Wars are over and Earth has peacefully prospered for more than one hundred years. Yet sometimes history must repeat itself until humanity learns from its mistakes. In the year 2170, despite technological and political advances, cyborgs and clones are treated no better than slaves, and an underground abolitionist movement is fighting for freedom. Thirteen-year-old Leanna's entire life is thrown into chaos when The World Federation of Nations discovers her mom is part of the radical Liberty Bell Movement.
Author Notes
Patricia C. McKissack was born in Smyrna, Tennessee on August 9, 1944. She received a bachelor's degree in English from Tennessee State University in 1964 and a master's degree in early childhood literature and media programming from Webster University in 1975. After college, she worked as a junior high school English teacher and a children's book editor at Concordia Publishing.
Since the 1980's, she and her husband Frederick L. McKissack have written over 100 books together. Most of their titles are biographies with a strong focus on African-American themes for young readers. Their early 1990s biography series, Great African Americans included volumes on Frederick Douglass, Marian Anderson, and Paul Robeson. Their other works included Black Hands, White Sails: The Story of African-American Whalers and Days of Jubilee: The End of Slavery in the United States. Over their 30 years of writing together, the couple won many awards including the C.S. Lewis Silver Medal, a Newbery Honor, nine Coretta Scott King Author and Honor awards, the Jane Addams Peace Award, and the NAACP Image Award for Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a Woman?. In 1998, they received the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement.
She also writes fiction on her own. Her book included Flossie and the Fox, Stitchin' and Pullin': A Gee's Bend Quilt, A Friendship for Today, and Let's Clap, Jump, Sing and Shout; Dance, Spin and Turn It Out! She won the Newberry Honor Book Award and the King Author Award for The Dark Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural in 1993 and the Caldecott Medal for Mirandy and Brother Wind. She dead of cardio-respiratory arrest on April 7, 2017 at the age of 72.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Thirteen-year-old Leanna has run from slave catchers with Harriet Tubman thanks to a virtual reality history class. Yet like many people in the year 2170, she believes clones aren't human, and thus keeping them as slaves doesn't bother her. But Leanna's world is shaken when her mother and a close family friend are arrested as suspected traitors for wanting to give clones civil rights. And when a discovery turns her world upside down and she makes a friend who belongs to a group she believed to be nearly as bad as clones, Leanna discovers that saving herself and her mother means joining the fight for clone equality. But even being immersed in the oppressed culture does not lead to Leanna's instant conversion. The McKissacks (Days of Jubilee), working with their son John for the first time, portray a plugged-in 22nd-century America that is recognizably descended both from contemporary prejudices as well as a modern reliance on technology. The story is tight and fast-paced, yet makes room for historical parallels that are vivid without being preachy. An intriguing start to a planned trilogy. Ages 9-12. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
In 2170, America has a new slave class: clones. Thirteen-year-old Leanna begins to question this order when her mother is arrested as part of a "terrorist" organization promoting clone rights. Obvious historical parallels are heavy-handed and sometimes supersede the logic of the authors' future world, but the action-filled plot and sympathetic characters make this parable readily accessible. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
In the year 2170, Leanna attends a school in Missouri that allows her to experience different time periods in history by virtually being there. Little does she know that she will soon be caught in a terrifying adventure, not unlike the slaves' escape from barking hounds en route to Canada through the Underground Railroad that she just experienced in class. When Leanna's mother is arrested for treason against the government, Leanna learns she is not a First, an original biological being. She is a clone in a society that enslaves and abuses them and must rely on the assistance of characters both living and historical to survive. The McKissacks' slight story for younger readers packs a great deal of messaging, which will no doubt prove useful in classroom discussions of issues and themes but sometimes comes at the expense of the story. The science-fiction backdrop serves as a framework for issues of identity and societal prejudice but is not predominant in the reading experience.--Koelling, Holly Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-A clunky, didactic science-fiction allegory. Leanna, 13, is studying the Underground Railroad. African slavery is ancient history in this America of 2170, but a new group is enslaved: clones. Leanna gives little thought to their status until her mother is suddenly arrested for ties to The Liberty Bell, a secret clone-liberation organization. Shaken, disbelieving, and afraid for her mother's life at the hands of cruel government captors, the teen asks her mother's friend for help. Using biographs-human replicas similar to holograms-Dr. Ayala introduces past and present figures entrusted with The Liberty Bell's work: Benjamin Franklin, Justice John Marshall Harlan, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Leanna's grandfather, Dr. David Montgomery. Leanna learns the importance of their work as well as a dangerous secret about her own identity. Some aspects of the plot are predictable and poorly drawn: few readers will be surprised when the "unnamed girl from 2170" whom Ben Franklin predicts will join the ranks of The Liberty Bell's Custodians is revealed to be the protagonist. Similarly, too many references to the distant past-such as Leanna describing her disheveled mother looking "like old photos of twentieth-century drug addicts"-prevent the futuristic setting from coming to life. Still, the fast pace, short chapters, and slim page count will make this volume attractive to reluctant readers, and the obvious curriculum tie-ins will appeal to teachers.-Megan Honig, New York Public Library (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
It is the year 2170, and Leanna, daughter of a respected child psychologist, is a typical 13-year-old interested in friends and sports. She is enrolled in All-Virtual School, where she experiences such historical events as an escape with Harriet Tubman. This becomes real when her mother is arrested for activism on behalf of the clones who serve as slave labor for humans. Leanna follows her mother's order to flee the clutches of her mother's jailers. While on the run, a message reveals that her mother's interest in clones was more than academic: Leanna is herself a clone and in danger should that fact be discovered. With the help of others sympathetic to their cause, Leanna avoids detection while dealing with facts about her identity that send her reeling. Some of the parallels to American slavery and racism are obvious; others are clever, such as the depiction of a secondary character, Houston, a closeted cyborg (another oppressed minority) who happens to be three-fifths human. This is fast-paced adventure with a provocative exploration of civil rights and identity. (Science fiction. 12 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.