Saturn Apartments, Volume 1

September 1, 2010

Gr 7 Up-Some time in the future, all of the humans are evacuated from Earth and moved to a man-made ring that now circles the planet. The luckiest people are the richest ones, because they can afford to have their windows cleaned so that they can see the planet far below them. Mitsu's father was a window cleaner, until the day five years ago that his rope broke (or was cut) and he fell down to the planet below. Now that Mitsu has graduated from junior high, he is about to become a window washer, too. It's a difficult and dangerous job because of the wind, meteorites, and radiation, but it's what he was born to do. This book introduces readers to a world that is both beautiful and tragic-people long to set foot on the planet Earth, but most of them can't even afford to see it. Iwaoka's drawings are for the most part cartoonlike and sweet, especially the people. But when the camera pulls back and readers see things on a grander scale-like Earth as seen through the eyes of a boy hanging tenuously by a rope while floating in space-Iwaoka's detail is suddenly breathtaking. Readers will look forward to the next volume because they'll be rooting for Mitsu to succeed in his career, to make new friends, to figure out what happened to his father, and to visit the surface of Earth.-Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library

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