First Light [Audiobook, Ungekürzte Ausgabe] [Englisch] [Audio CD]

First Light was hard for me to put down. Peter Solemn's world is rocked in the very first chapter when his father, a glaciologist, announces the family is going on a research trip to Greenland. Two chapters later, we meet a second main character, Thea, who lives under the arctic ice in a society created generations ago by a group of people fleeing persecution in Europe.

What I loved most about this book was that it plunged me into not just one, but two fascinating new worlds. Greenland itself really qualifies as an alien landscape of sorts, and Stead's rich details bring it to life. (Is there really a Volkswagon Road there where the company tests new models? So cool!) Thea's world beneath the ice is painted vividly as well with terrific techno-details about the innovations of that new society called Gracehope. I've added Gracehope to the list of imaginary places (along with Hogwarts and Narnia) that I long to visit some day.

I'm not giving too much away if I share that Peter and Thea cross paths along the way. Their stories intertwine in ways that are surprising but perfect and believable at the same time. First Light is a great read -- a fantastic mix of science fiction and adventure with plenty of real science mixed in, too. Teachers looking for titles to integrate with earth science and environmental units will especially love this one.

First Light by Rebecca Stead is told by two narrators. The first, Peter, is the son of a glaciologist and a genetic scientist. He is thrilled when his parents decide to take him on an expedition to Greenland, where they will be studying different aspects of glacier ice caps and the effects of global warming. Thea, the other narrator, lives in a city underneath the ice in Greenland, called Gracehope. Thea and Peter meet accidentally and without warning, the two worlds collide in what could be disaster.

The novel was a bit slow in the beginning, but picked up in pace and excitement towards the middle. The was very reminiscent of Jeanne DuPrau's City of Ember books, though I almost liked the setting in First Light better. It has been said that people can really survive surrounded by ice...so who knows if there really is a Gracehope out there! :-)

I was a little disappointed in this title, though I very much enjoyed it...it just wasn't quite as fabulous as everyone has said. I think that's why I would much rather read a book before so many other people get their hands on it, that way my view isn't skewed and I don't get my expectations too high! At any rate, I still enjoyed the book, it was well written and I look forward to seeing other works from this author.

Sometimes I stop myself in the middle of the day and think random thoughts. Thoughts like, "Why am I so freaked out by pigeons with deformed feet?" or, "Is there a logical reason why grass never became a delicacy?" and even, "Did I like science fiction as a child?" That last question pops up more than the others, maybe because it's worth pondering from a contemporary marketing/librarian standpoint. The conventional wisdom will tell you that science fiction for kids doesn't sell. Of course, dig a little deeper beneath that statement and you'll find exceptions to the rule. Bruce Coville's My Teacher Is an Alien series, Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time or The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau all come to mind. DuPrau's book is the best example of a successful science fiction novel (what with the movie and all) and it seems appropriate to mention it in terms of the most recent title I just read. "First Light" by Rebecca Stead is a meticulous melding of science fiction, ecological fact, and crisp storytelling. Melding global warming and DNA, and set against a magnificently chilly backdrop, Stead creates a cohesive, gripping story without allowing her book to fall apart into incomprehensible goo.

Two kids. Two lives. First of all you have Peter. He's happy enough living in New York City, but when his dad informs the family that they're taking some months off to join him on his expedition to Greenland, the kid is seriously excited. It's a pity that he's been getting these headaches though. They're not serious or anything, but once in a while Peter finds that if he looks at something far away he can suddenly zoom in on it like there's a telescope inside of his eyes. That problem has nothing on Thea's, though. Thea lives in Gracehope, a civilization of ice, skating, and dogs. Her home is in the center of a glacier and it is there that her people have survived for hundreds of years, purposefully hiding from the outside world. Thea is convinced that there must be a way out of Gracehope since the population is booming and supplies are running low. Unfortunately, her grandmother (and ruler of Gracehope) forbids any research into the matter. Yet soon enough Thea takes a chance and runs into Peter, leading to the discovery that their lives and pasts are oddly and inexorably linked.

Quite frankly, I just liked the writing. It's interesting and to the point without forgetting to get a little descriptive now and again. For example, when Peter considers his father's experience in the Arctic as opposed to his scholarly methodical university self, it occurs to the kid that being the son of such a man, "was a little like living with Clark Kent but never once getting to meet Superman." Larger overarching themes are treated with a similarly deft hand. I liked Stead's handling of Peter's mother's depression. It's a difficult topic, and it would be all too easy to turn his mom into a villain when she's not feeling well. Instead, you have the distinct sense that she really can't help getting whapped with a bad bout once in a while. In terms of readability, "First Light" will not bore your average middle grade child reader. It has a firm enough grasp on its own private world to convince you that what happens in Gracehope could happen anywhere.

I do not write fiction, but if I were to hazard a guess at what it is like to write a work of science-fiction as opposed to a work of fantasy, I would have to suspect that science-fiction was the harder row to hoe. After all, you need to place your world firmly in fact, and that means research. In Ms. Stead's case it would have meant the research of the Arctic, DNA, ice, global warming, and who knows what else. Little throw away lines like, "It was against the law to bring dogs into Greenland - the Inuit wanted to keep their breed pure..." smack of the truth. Ditto the rumor that hidden somewhere in Greenland is, "a road on the ice cap built in secret by Volkswagen as a private test site for new cars." Sometimes convincing your reader that they're in another world requires a realistic infusion of real facts. Lose your details, lose your readers. That's why Peter's superhuman abilities that emerge throughout the book don't become superfluous. Not only does Stead ground them in fact but she also works them into an overriding theme concerning Peter's mother's job.

And can I say how much of a relief it was to meet a character like Jonas in this book? Jonas is Peter's father's research assistant and is part-Inuit. Were Stead a different writer she might have used this character to launch into a whole taking-care-of-the-Earth slash Indian-way-of-life kind of didactic poppycock. She would have made Jonas a symbol rather than a person. To her infinite credit, however, Jonas is none of those things. He is capable and interesting, but his purpose in this book is to act as a person that Peter can talk to when he can't talk to his parents rather than some kind of fount of infinite wisdom.

There were a couple problems here and there, of course. For example, I did feel that there was some difficulty in this book when it came to separating names of characters. Particularly characters of the dog-like persuasion. In Gracehope the dogs, or Chikchu, are special companions to the humans. Each person is assigned their own dog, which is fine and all but because Thea is constantly working with a bunch of different animals it can get very confusing parsing one canine from another. To a certain extent, this was applicable to the adults living in Gracehope as well. I don't know if it was that their names weren't distinct enough or what, but sometimes I had a hard time remembering who was who. A name chart at the beginning or end of the book would not have been out of place. Some reviewers have also criticized the mythology surrounding Gracehope's origins. Though a little foggy, I bought into the idea that a persecuted people might be able to found a new land with some ingenuity here and there. Maybe the actual details were sketchy, but once you're in Gracehope you're convinced that it could work the way Stead says (though certainly the issue of indoor plumbing is never really addressed). For my part, I wasn't altogether persuaded that someone from the past, however gifted they might have been, would have cracked the secret of DNA. Stead asks you to make a leap or two in the course of the book, but these are never leaps that distract entirely from the central theme, characters, or plot.

Certainly this is the book to pull out and recommend when you get kids screaming for more books like "City of Ember". The two titles are vastly different in tone and methodology, but they share some surface similarities. Both books involve cities under the surface of the Earth where a boy and a girl are desirous of some upward mobility (sorry, I couldn't resist). Both involve civilizations that over the course of generations have forgotten that they are temporary situations. Stead's book doesn't naturally lend itself to sequels, which is a bit of a relief. Sometimes it's nice to read a book that doesn't end on a cliffhanger or climax. As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, I've never been able to ascertain whether or not I myself read science fiction as a kid. Still, I like to think that if I did, this would have been the kind of book I'd have liked. Equally enjoyable to boys and girls, it's a fun take on a different kind of world.