EDELWEISS

A girl investigates the secrets beneath her new city in Hall’s dystopian YA fantasy, one in a series.

In the far future—after the waters have risen and then frozen—a smaller civilization (one with little understanding of the ancient technology entombed beneath its feet) has inherited an icier Earth. Olivia and her parents have just moved to the scenic town of June, built on a steep hillside above an icy expanse. They’ve come so that her father—a scholar of ancient tech—can take up a scientific residency at the centuries-old Wardenclyffe lighthouse that stands at the edge of town. Olivia is impressed by the town’s massive library, and also by its population of functioning androids (the ones in her old community stopped working long ago), but the best thing by far about June is Ava, the pretty girl in Olivia’s art class. The two quickly become best friends and explore the forbidden tunnels under their school. They soon find evidence of a mysterious Institute buried beneath the town, as well as indications that someone—perhaps the woman in the red coat who arrived in June on the same day as Olivia—has been sabotaging the local androids. What begins as a lark between friends soon turns into a high-stakes adventure replete with kidnappings, explosions, and the lost secrets of June. Hall’s prose, as narrated by Olivia, has a naive directness that, paired with the striking illustrations by Ollikainen, recalls the work of L. Frank Baum. “He’s wearing a nice-looking outfit,” Olivia notes of one decommissioned android she finds, “although despite its pristine condition it looks about a century or two out of date, like something you’d see in a history book.” The pacing is a bit slow, and readers will not find the urgent melodrama that characterizes much dystopian YA (though there is a bit of romance). For those nostalgic for an earlier era of young people’s literature, however, Hall’s yarn offers enormous delight.

A playful, enchanting YA story set in an icy future.