THE DECLARATION
by Gemma Malley
A futuristic adventure reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro’s adult novel Never Let Me Go. Anna is a “Surplus,” an illegally born child. In 2140, medical breakthroughs have enabled eternal life, so there is no room in the world for children. Those, like Anna, who are born illegally are raised in Surplus Halls, where they are taught how to “Know Their Place” and become “Valuable Assets.” Anna is grateful for her home in the freezing cold Surplus Hall, for her tiny shares of bad food and for the teachers who give her the skills she will need after graduation when she will work in forced labor for “Legal People.” But Anna’s comfortable world of Knowing Her Place is disrupted when a new Surplus arrives, a boy named Peter who claims to bring messages from Anna’s parents. Peter challenges everything Anna has ever believed about society, nature and morality. Anna’s adventure is well worth reading; this unreliable narrator’s faith in her tormentors is thought-provoking and deeply sad. (Science fiction. 11-13)