The City of Ember

The kids and I are fighting.
Over a book.
I told them I better read it first, just to make sure that it's ok for little kids.
"We've seen the movie, Mum. It's ok. And I'm not little."
Now I'm having to hide it.

What is this book?
It is The City of Ember written by Jeanne DuPrau.

I am not one for Science Fiction. At all. I hate it. Usually. But they say that there is always an exception to the rule. This is it.
The City of Ember has gripped us. We saw it on dvd at the weekend - just a random movie that I grabbed off the children's shelf at the library last week when I was in a hurry. Quickly scanned the blurb on the back. Sounded ok - rated PG. Give it a go.

Did I already say we love it?

The City of Ember is actually a city. A post-apocalyptic city, buried miles under the surface of the earth. It was built to save the human race from destruction. It was built to last 200 years. Now, that time is up.
Everything is running out. The food, the clothes, the lights, the generator. The city is beginning to crumble and corruption is rife. It is up to teenagers, Lina and Doon, to find the way out and to piece together the clues left by the creators of the city in a small forgotten steel box - before darkness encloses them all forever. The citizens of Ember know nothing outside their little electric-run city, lighted by hundreds of lamps. They don't know about Earth. They don't know about the sea and the sky and the wind and rain and the moon.
And they don't know about the Sun.
All they know is Ember. And outside Ember is darkness.
The secrets of the Earth were enclosed in the little box and sealed for 200 years.

The movie was very well done - exciting. I would not recommend it for any children under the age of 8 years. Even then my 8 year old wanted to fastforward the scary bits - which were a man being taken to jail and a mutated mole with an octopus-like head who is very hungry (that was the only bit in the movie that I thought was dumb), and Lina and Doon being chased by the 'policemen' of a corrupt mayor.
But my 10 year old liked those parts.

The book itself is very good and grips you from the first page. It's also the first in a series of 4. Without giving too much away the rest of the series follows the fortunes of Lina and Doon and some of the other people from Ember.

It's also on audio book .