Science Fiction Book Blog #2

Book Title: The City of EmberAuthor: Jeanne DuPrau
Illustrator: N/A
Publisher: Yearling, Copyright 2004
Number of pages: 270
Genre: Science Fiction

In this dystopian novel, Lina and her friend Doon must fight to save what's left of their city. The only light source available to their city is beginning to flickr, and they believe they may have found the key to saving their sacred City of Ember.

With this being a chapter book, there are no illustrations. However, the cover of the book is very intriguing. I believe that it would attract the attention of your older and possibly more mature students. The background is very dark with the center of the cover showing a single light bulb giving off a very limited amount of light, just as in the story.

Grade Level: 5th grade
Subject Area: ELA (Key Ideas and Details)
Standard: 2) Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text. [RL.5.2]

This would be a great book to read as a class with 5th grade students. It would do an excellent job at introducing the idea of a dystopian story as well as make your students think. They could do a variety of projects related to this book. I like the idea of having them work with groups, not according to ability, and having them create a book trailer for The City of Ember. By doing so, they must explore all parts of the book, including the theme, to put the right pieces together to make an effective book trailer. Lastly, I would let them all show their book trailers to the rest of the class and post them to a class blog, Facebook, Instagram, etc.