POPPY AND MARIGOLD

In a realm where different races and cultures possess color-coded skins and values assigned to go with them, a young Blue citizen accidentally strays into the forbidden Orange zone.

Dendler here offers a middle-grade fantasy allegory depicting a land where easily co-existing human cultures have evolved to split along severely demarcated lines of homogenous colors and values. The Blues, sure enough, have blue skin; they are arrogant, technologically advanced, xenophobic, and bound by 50 ironclad rules for living—the penalty for infractions of any of the 50 Blue rules is usually death. The Blues’ long-standing enemies are the scarlet-hued, warlike Reds. While the Blues revere the distant, mystic Yellows, they scorn their immediate neighbors, the Oranges. In school lessons and propaganda, Oranges are characterized as stupid and savage. The young protagonist, Poppy, is a Blue girl with the advantage of a grandmother, Bibi, who still retains memories of a more idyllic time in which Oranges and Blues had the option to mix freely and meals could be prepared without the use of ubiquitous synthesizing machines. Inspired by Bibi, Poppy goes out picking berries in the wild woods, where a bear chases the terrified girl into what turns out to be Orange territory—thus causing her to break one of the most crucial of the 50 rules. If discovered by her side’s patrols, Poppy could be instantly executed. Instead, however, she finds protection with Marigold, an Orange farm girl of the same age. Poppy eventually meets Marigold’s mother Sunsi, her father Paulto, and their livestock animals, and she realizes that, while the agrarian Oranges may live in relatively primitive conditions (including the bathrooms), they are warmhearted, welcoming, and deserving of respect. But will Poppy live to impart this knowledge? A major complication arrives in the form of an invasion by the vicious Reds that poses an imminent threat for all the factions.

Dendler modulates the material well for young readers, targeting an audience perhaps a bit too young for Lois Lowry’s classic story of dystopic conformity, The Giver (1993)—but adults may also enjoy this tale without feeling condescended to or irritated by oversimplification. The narrative goes at a pleasant clip, and despite vague references to legendary long-ago kings, the author does not spend much time dwelling on origin tales or distracting backstories about how this fractured, varicolored society came to be. Surprisingly, once the obvious first-act moral against prejudice is checked off the expectation list (“Poppy hesitated. She could list dozens of ways they were so very different, but they also had a lot in common. Who’d believe Blues have anything in common with an Orange?”), there is sufficient narrative interest and ethical conflict remaining to effectively keep readers in suspense. The boundaries of reality are slightly overstepped in the finale, but it does provide (to resurrect a now-outmoded phrase) a fine Kodachrome moment.

Even Blue girls get the cows in this agreeable, parable-like fantasy of tolerance, courage, and integrity.