"First Light' by Rebecca Stead




Stead, Rebecca. (2007). First Light. New York, NY: Random House Children’s Books. ISBN: 978-0-375-84017-3
                This book is like a childhood fantasy come true, (sort of). In it, there is a society of people living inside a polar ice cap! Did I mention that the society was mystically gifted with abilities like binocular-eyes and ears that can comprehend even speech patterns of animals? I know I always assumed that was what was going on in the North Pole.  In First Light, we are immediately alerted to the fact that part of this does not take place in the normal world we know of. A boy, Matthias, talks of paper being a sacred commodity in his land and suddenly we know that we are not in Kansas anymore.
                Matthias and Thea, our main characters, live under ice and the characterization of their city Gracehope is surprisingly well thought out and, seemingly, scientifically plausible. We also get the perspective of Peter who has a rather odd family, but we don’t know why for a while.
                This book was a pretty quick read because of the straightforward simplicity with which the tale is told and also because it gives the reader so many questions that the only thing to do is just finish the book as expediently as possible! Reading this was very satisfying because the 500 questions that developed while I was reading the first half, were methodically answered in the second half. However, it does leave you wondering at the end, what now for the people of Gracehope? (I’ve looked, there is no sequel. Sorry, I'm sad too.)

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More about the Author
About Mitochondrial DNA (because you’ll wonder after reading this)

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