Saving Sky - Hardcover

Stanley, Diane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061239054 ISBN 13: 9780061239052

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2010

Synopsis

The country is at war, terrorists strike at random, widespread rationing is in effect, and the power grid is down. But thirteen-year-old Sky Brightman is remarkably untouched by it all. She lives off the grid on sixty acres of rural New Mexico ranch land with chores to do and horses to ride and no television or internet to bring disturbing news into her family's adobe house. Sky's schoolmates think she's a little weird.

Then a string of mysterious arrests begins, and her new friend, Kareem, becomes a target. Sky is finally forced to confront the world in all its complexity. Summoning her considerable courage and ingenuity, she takes a stand against injustice. With humor, hope, and fierce determination, she proves that even a child can change the world.

About this title

About the Author:

Diane Stanley is the author and illustrator of beloved books for young readers, including The Silver Bowl, which received three starred reviews, was named a best book of the year by Kirkus Reviews and Book Links Lasting Connections, and was an ALA Booklist Editors' Choice; The Cup and the Crown; Saving Sky, winner of the Arab American Museum's Arab American Book Award and a Bank Street College of Education Best Book of the Year; Bella at Midnight, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and an ALA Booklist Editors' Choice; The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy; The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine; and A Time Apart. Well known as the author and illustrator of award-winning picture-book biographies, she is the recipient of the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children and the Washington Post-Children's Book Guild Nonfiction Award for her body of work.

Ms. Stanley has also written and illustrated numerous picture books, including three creatively reimagined fairy tales: The Giant and the Beanstalk, Goldie and the Three Bears, and Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. dianestanleybooks.com.

From School Library Journal:

Gr 5-8–Living on a New Mexico ranch, Sky Brightman and her family are largely removed from the disturbing news of the war on terror and are sheltered from images of death and destruction as suicide bombers wage war on the United States. Then, when Kareem, a seventh-grade Middle Eastern classmate, is picked on by bullies, and his doctor father is detained by federal agents, Sky resolves to stand by the boy. In a scene that stretches credulity, Sky and her mother collaborate to remove Kareem surreptitiously from school. They safeguard him in their home and build a secret place for him in the barn in case he should need one. Kareem goes into hiding when suspicious Homeland Security agents come looking for him. In the meantime, an attack knocks out the power over a good portion of the country. When Homeland Security comes again, Kareem is spotted and knows he must turn himself in; the president has ordered the DHS to hold detainees until the war ends. Four months later, at the state's Land of Enchantment essay award ceremony, Sky reads from Kareem's poignant journal and is heartened by the audience's reception. The mood of the novel is muted by the spare detail. The main characters are well rendered and likable, and, in her portrayal of the earth-centered, nurturing Brightman family, Stanley succeeds in delivering the message that hope trumps fear.Susan W. Hunter, Riverside Middle School, Springfield, VT
© Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0061239054
• ISBN 13: 9780061239052
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208