The Ark Plan

May 1, 2016

Gr 4-6-Sky Mundy has heard all her life how the Noah saved the citizens of the United States from extinction during the Dinosauria Pandemic, getting them into the old nuclear bomb shelters that were safe from ferocious dinosaurs and the fatal virus they carry. But Sky sees the dark side of the Noah's Marine enforcers. She is singled out because she is an orphan and thus a burden (though she refuses to acknowledge that her father, missing for five years, is dead), and her life is a litany of work details and isolation in the Guardian Wing of the North Compound. Sky desperately hopes for word from her absent father, and finally, on her 12th birthday, her best friend Shawn finds a clue hidden in the compass Sky's father gave her just before he disappeared. With that information, Sky decides it's time to go "topside" to look for her missing dad. Shawn helps her make a daring escape from the compound, and the two discover that the world outside is not as they were led to believe. There are certainly dinosaurs, and most of them are out to make Sky and Shawn dinner. But there are also people living topside, not to mention fresh food and fresh air. In this clever take on Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, the tale is reimagined on a worldwide scale. The characters are developed, and the postapocalyptic world is well imagined and replete with detail. The plot moves forward briskly, with a few good twists, and the ending sets up neatly for a sequel. Nonstop action, marauding dinosaurs, and kids on the run: What's not to like?

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2016
With resurgent dinosaurs roaming the surface, living underground is humanity's only hope for survival. Or...is it? A century and a half ago, scientists revived the dinos a la Jurassic Park but also brought on a prehistoric pandemic that wiped out 99.9 percent of the human race. Now Sky (a redheaded white girl, judging by the cover art) lives with less than 100 others in a subterranean bunker that, she has always been told, is the only protection from certain death topside. But on her 12th birthday, a letter from her long-missing father arrives, urging her to deliver a certain flash drive to a mysterious location on Lake Michigan. She quickly learns not only that there are people maintaining a precarious existence on the surface, but that she's carrying secrets the supposedly beneficent leaders of her community will kill to suppress. As a budding Katniss Everdeen--tough, stubborn, resilient, and though new to the bow a quick enough learner by the end to put an arrow through the eye of a ravening spinosaurus--Sky makes a promising protagonist. Martin pits her against vividly scary foes both scaled and armed with automatic weapons, places her between two quaintly protective guys (one from aboveground, the other below), and sets her on a path that plainly leads to revelations about her family as well as her world. Formulaic but with enough juice in the characters and their relentlessly dangerous setting to keep the story hydrated. (Science fiction. 11-13)

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