Monday, July 18, 2011

Book Review: The Boy at the End of the World

The Boy at the End of the World
by Greg van Eekhout

Fisher's first moments of life could end up being his last. Born from a pod of bubbling gel, he comes to awareness in a lab that is collapsing around him. Fisher manages to escape with the help of a slightly dysfunctional (and humorous) robot that Fisher names Click from the noise that the robot makes. Fisher is the only "specimen" who survived the destruction of the Ark, which was built to preserve the species of the Earth, so he may be the last human left. Accompanied by Click and a young Mammoth that Fisher calls Protein, Fisher sets off to find out if there are any other humans surviving anywhere.

The Boy at the End of the World is a delightful post-apocalyptic novel that strikes the perfect tone for middle-grade readers. It's amusing, touching, and occasionally scary (the nano Intelligence that they meet is quite creepy), and it touches on themes of friendship and what it means to be human.

Fisher has "darkly pigmented" skin, giving this book bonus points for diversity. Here is an interesting post from author Greg van Eekhout talking about Fisher's skin color, the development of the cover, and his own background.

Buy The Boy at the End of the World from:
Amazon.com
Your local independent bookseller through IndieBound
Barnes & Noble

FTC required disclosure: Reviewed from ARC. Review copy provided by the publisher to enable me to write this review. The bookstore links above are affiliate links, and I earn a very small percentage of any sales made through the links. Neither of these things influenced my review.


4 comments:

Ms. Yingling said...

Very interested to see what you thought of this. I did think it was a good post-apocalyptic tale for middle grades. some of the ones for older readers are SO dark.

Unknown said...

Yes, I thought that the scary parts in this book were just right: scary enough without being too dark. Although I did check my covers for nanoworms before going to bed. *shudder* Have any of your students read it? I guess school is out for the summer, though, so probably not.

Natalie Aguirre said...

This sounds good. Thanks for sharing about it.

Unknown said...

You're welcome.