Race the Night

Gr 4–6—The world has ended. All that's left is the remote desert compound where 12-year-old Eider and four other children live under the stern rule of Teacher, whose tales of the cataclysm and dangers of the outside world keep the children isolated and afraid to question what they've been told. Eider's growing sense of "something out there…something more" emboldens her to venture beyond the compound walls, discovering traces of humanity and hope. Like its companion novel Watch the Sky, this title includes a stark desert setting, apocalyptic paranoia, and sincere but delusional adults who use fear as a weapon of control. Hubbard waits until the final pages to link the two stories: when they do intersect, fans of the first book will be rocked. Readers unfamiliar with Watch the Sky will still enjoy an emotionally satisfying—if a bit convenient—resolution. Hubbard's evocative language conveys the tension: a character's hair is "so pale it looked like the color had been frightened out of it." The four children who make up Eider's compound family tug at readers' hearts as they struggle to gain the courage to challenge their limited world. Eider is an engaging protagonist, journeying from oppression to liberation, buoyed by the faith that she may still have something the other children do not: a sibling.