I love this book!! Students at school are always asking me for a good book to read and this is at the top of my list. It is rarely in the library, it's so popular. Kids as well as adults will enjoy it until the very end.

My son brought this book home from school a few years ago (he's 11 now) and we read it aloud together - sometimes he would read a chapter, sometimes me.

The author has created just the type of story that kids love - mysterious and with the heroine herself just a child.

In this book we're given a tiny civilization called Ember - really just a single city - that is completely isolated. Their world literally ends at the city limits where the "unknown regions" begin and only darkness and a moon-like landscape exist. The city is obviously old and crumbling, as the inhabitants fight to maintain the aging infrastructure, the most important facet of which is the electrical generating apparatus, without which the city is enveloped in total, suffocating blackness. They live in perpetual night, their world lit only by streetlamps on the outside and incandescent bulbs in their dwellings. It's a depressing, monotonous world, devoid of much color or beauty, but it is all the residents of Ember have known for generation upon generation.

Some have thought of venturing out - to explore the world beyond Ember - if one indeed even exists, but nobody has been successful. To the inhabitants of Ember, there is no world except their own. But that world is decaying - as evidenced by increasingly frequent blackouts and supplies from a vast storehouse that are clearly running low. Most of residents steadfastly hope against hope that their world will remain undisturbed and the mayor tries valiantly to calm their fears, but to 12-year-old Lina and her friend Doon, the time has come to find a way out of Ember to find a City of Light of which Lina has dreamt.

A cryptic note entitled "Instructions for Egress" takes Lina and Doon on what can best be thought of as a scavenger hunt for additional clues. They are eventually led down the mysterious river that powers Ember's generators, originating from an unknown source and flowing to an unknown destination.

The book kept both me and my son captivated until the final page and made us immediately want to get the sequel, "The People of Sparks" which I have reviewed on Amazon as well.

Author Jeanne Duprau has done a masterful job of crafting a story that will be enjoyed by children from ages 7-12 (and older) along with their parents. But because the reading is generally aimed for a 4th grade level, younger readers will probably need to have their parents read it to them.

In some ways, the book reminded me of the classic "A Wrinkle In Time" by Madeleine L'Engle, which I read as a child and seemed so wonderfully mysterious and highly scientific to me at the time. I think children will have the same response to this book.

I recommend it highly and congratulate Ms. Duprau for a fine children's book.

The City of Ember is a book about two children and a very unlucky town that has an electrical problem with it's lights in the city. When the people of the city are frightened from unexpected black out's they are afraid that the lights will not come back on, when the two kids who are a boy and a girl who have to take care of everything at home including the jobs that they are assigned to do each day except Thursdays. The two find that they're mayor is just a big hog when the town needs food and light bulbs and supplies the most the kids find out that they're mayor has been taking it all and hiding it in the generator room in the underground mines and river that keeps the town up and running the things that are needed the most are hidden in a secret room in the generator well room down under ground. The mayor then tries to hide a box from everyone ,and your going to have to read the rest cause I wont give away the end. So read the City of Ember and find out what happens to the town then read the second part of this book in The people of Sparks this is a really good book for young teens on up so read it today.

The City of Ember is in trouble, but the unworried citizens seem to ignore the food shortages and frequent blackouts. Sadly for the citizens of Ember, "The Instructions" to save the city were not handed down through the generations of mayors as they were supposed to be, and all of a sudden Lina, a Messenger for the people of Ember, has discovered them in her closet. Unfortunately, Lina's baby sister Poppy has chewed up the note and now Lina has to put together the broken up letter. She must turn to the only one who realizes the city is falling apart, her childhood friend, Doon Harrow. When she shows him the partially destroyed Instructions he believes her about the instructions possibly saving the city. But what can two children do with such important information, and who would even believe them?


read this book and you will not regret it

P.S. the sequal is terrible

I really enjoyed the book. This was my favorite book. It is about a city underground that is dying because the generator is breaking down and the lights are going off one by one. There are two children, Lina and Doon who found the instructions from the builders. The instructions lead them out of the imperil darkness. How did they do it? Read the book. After this book read the People of the Sparks, The second book of Ember.