Interview with Jeanne DuPrau

I was very pleased to have the chance to have an interview with the very busy and oh-so-talented Jeanne DuPrau, author of the Ember books: The City of Ember, The People of Sparks, The Prophet of Yonwood, and The Diamond of Darkhold.

How did growing up in the fifties influence you (or your mindset) when creating the world of Ember and Sparks?

During the 1950s, many people were worried that there might be a nuclear war. Some of them were building bomb shelters in their back yards. I used to read magazine articles with instructions about how to do this. All of it made a huge impression on me, and there's no doubt that it influenced my idea for Ember, which is a place built to save the human race from a terrible threat.

What came first, the premise or the characters?
The idea for the city came first. But very soon, I knew that my characters would be a boy and a girl, and that they would be young.

How important was it for you to have resonating characters that readers care about?

This was important. If readers don't care about the characters, they won't read the story. Lina and Doon feel very real to me.

What inspired you to go back to Ember--to return to telling Lina and Doon's story?

The third of the Books of Ember, The Prophet of Yonwood, is set in a different time and place from the first two and has different characters. I wanted to bring the series to a close by taking the story back where it started. I also wanted to tell what happened to the people of Ember as they faced that first hard winter in the town of Sparks.

What order would you encourage readers to read the Ember books in?

It's best to read them in the order they were published. Even though The Prophet of Yonwood comes chronologically first, its ending has more meaning if you've already read The City of Ember.

Can you share what “a day in the life” of a successful author is like for readers? What does a writer do behind-the-scenes?

I'm afraid it isn't very exciting. In the morning, I walk my dog, I eat my breakfast, and I check my e-mail. My writing time comes next. Usually it's no more than two or three hours. I sit at my computer, and I think and write. I stare out the window a lot. Sometimes there are phone calls, or books to be read for research, or letters or speeches to write. But if you made a movie out of my typical day, I have a feeling it would be so boring to watch that the audience would walk out.

If you could meet any author—past or present—who would you want the chance to get to know better?

I'd love to be at a dinner party with Mark Twain and get a close-up experience of his famous wit. I loved Tom Sawyer as a child, and I think the very scary cave scene in that book may have influenced The City of Ember. My book won the Missouri Mark Twain Award, so a little bust of Mark Twain sits on my desk and reminds me every day of one of my favorite writers.

Dystopian novels have always been a favorite sub-genre of mine. I’m wondering if you have a list of favorites to recommend. Which dystopian novels make your best list?
Among the classics, I'd have to list 1984, by George Orwell, and Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. Cormac McCarthy's The Road has to be one of the bleakest and most powerful dystopias I've ever read. Among books for young people, I've admired Feed, by M.T. Anderson, and The Giver, by Lois Lowry. And don't forget Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury.

If you had twenty-four hours, a time machine, and a limitless supply of money, what would you want to do?

I would use the money to equip my time machine with wings, and I would fly backward and forward in time and see as much as I could of the past and the future. Twenty-four hours wouldn't be nearly enough! I'd want to see ancient Egypt, and Victorian England, and the dinosaurs...and then America a hundred years from now, and a thousand years from now... It's always seemed very unfair to me that we get only one short lifetime in the world.
For more on Jeanne DuPrau and her books:

01 Charger, the 160acrewoods, A Childhood of Dreams, A Christian Worldview of Fiction, All About Children's Books, And Another Book Read, Becky's Book Reviews, Book Review Maniac, Cafe of Dreams, Dolce Bellezza, Fireside Musings, Homeschool Buzz, Hyperbole, Looking Glass Reviews, Never Jam Today,Comax Valley Kids
© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

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The Diamond of Darkhold

DuPrau, Jeanne. 2008. The Diamond of Darkhold.

The Diamond of Darkhold is the fourth in the Ember series by Jeanne DuPrau. It begins shortly after the close of the second book in the series, The People of Sparks. The Emberites--now on their way to becoming full citizens of Sparks--are struggling side-by-side with the people of Sparks (their former enemies) to survive the harsh winter months. In the midst of this struggle, a roamer comes to town. Maggs, a woman roamer, a shepherdess, comes to barter, but with food being so precious, she's having a hard time of it. Until Lina and Doon spot something even more precious to them than food. A book. Well, remnants of a book anyway. Just eight pages in length, the book catches their attention because its title reveals that it is for the people of Ember. Further study proves that it this book is an instruction book for the people of Ember. But with just the last eight pages in place, who could ever puzzle out its meaning?

If you've read the first book--and chances are you have else you wouldn't still be reading this review--you know that Lina and Doon have experience in solving difficult and mysterious and seemingly impossible puzzles. Knowing that no adults in Sparks would give their approval to these two kids' crazy plan, Lina and Doon make secret plans to leave Sparks and head off to a place they thought they'd never see again. A place they fear will have long lost sunken into darkness. The city of Ember.

Can these two kids return to Ember and discover just what this book is all about? Can they make sense of this mystery? Can their journey lead to a discovery that could ultimately decide the fate of every man, woman, and child in Sparks? Can they save the day...again?

While The People of Sparks and The Prophet of Yonwood are more about ideas and philosophies, this one is pure action and adventure. More action, less philosophy. Less ambitious themes, more exciting pace. So in a way, perhaps, it is less thought-provoking than its predecessors, but in some ways, I think it is more satisfying for most readers. (Less moralizing going on, for example. Am I the only ones that see these books as being heavy in messages???)

I've seen a review or two of this one already. And I don't remember which one it was that mentioned you didn't need to have read The Prophet of Yonwood to make sense of this one. I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. I think you can enjoy 98% of the novel without having read the other, but there are a few elements especially in the novel's closing that only really make sense if you've read Prophet of Yonwood. The more important question may be is it necessary to have read the other books in the series recently. Confession time, I read The Diamond of Darkhold days within receiving it in the mail. I found it less than satisfying. Especially the last quarter of the book. Especially especially the ending. But I determined that this was probably due to the fact that it had been a while since I'd read the trilogy of books that precedes this one. So I went to my local library and checked out those three books--The City of Ember, The People of Sparks, The Prophet of Yonwood. I read them again, all right after one another. And then I picked up The Diamond of Darkhold. This second time it proved to be an entertaining and satisfying read. I needed a reintroduction to make this one really work. That's not to say that every reader would need this immersion process...maybe your memory is better than mine...a lot better than mine. But I'd suggest rereading the other books. It won't be a waste of time because they're all (mostly) enjoyable books.

For more on Jeanne DuPrau and her latest book:

01 Charger, the 160acrewoods, A Childhood of Dreams, A Christian Worldview of Fiction, All About Children's Books, And Another Book Read, Becky's Book Reviews, Book Review Maniac, Cafe of Dreams, Dolce Bellezza, Fireside Musings, Homeschool Buzz, Hyperbole, Looking Glass Reviews, Never Jam Today,Comax Valley Kids

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Ember-Related Thoughts

This post contains further thoughts on the first three books in the Ember series by Jeanne DuPrau. I reread the series before tackling the fourth book.

I read this one, The City of Ember, in the Spring of 2007, I believe, along with its two sequels The People of Sparks and The Prophet of Yonwood. But I decided to reread these so I could fully appreciate the fourth novel in the series, The Diamond of Darkhold.

What can I say? I loved it. Still. You know how sometimes when you reread a book, it loses some of its magic. That didn't happen here. The world DuPrau created--Ember--from its people to its structures to its politics and culture--is remarkably well-executed. It's a complete world for the reader to explore. And it doesn't take much suspension of disbelief either. It just works.

Lina and Doon are great narrators. The narrative is told from both of their perspectives. And it's interesting how many adventure stories use dual narrators--male and female--to convey their stories. Perhaps having both genders increases the readership? Who knows! I think this one is exciting enough for both boys and girls to get hooked.

DuPrau created an unforgettable world. A fascinating world. I don't know about other readers. So maybe I'm the only one that has given this a lot of thought...but I want more. I want more stories set in this world. I know it's not going to happen. I know that DuPrau is finished with this series. That she has no intentions of exploring it further. But what I am most interested in hasn't been done yet. I want stories of what Ember was like before. I want stories about those first settlers. Those first generations. Those people--men, women, children, babies--that grew up in those two hundred years when they were living underground in Ember.

What we get in The City of Ember is a glimpse of Ember as it was dying. We see a city collapsing. We see a city on the verge of panic, of turmoil, of chaos. What I would love to see, what I would love to imagine is the creation and foundation of that city. I want to know about how that city came to be. Perhaps a book of short stories where we could get sprinklings of what life was like during those 200 years or so. Wouldn't that be something worth reading??? I think so!!!

This reader wants a prequel. Of course, it's not likely to happen.

The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau is the second in the Ember series. It is very different (in a way) from the first novel, The City of Ember. It's an ambitious novel that goes where few have gone before. It beautifully portrays the "us" and "them" mentality of war-mongerers. It illustrates the kinds of behaviors that lead to war, to hate, to trouble, to catastrophe. It's a thought-provoking novel that asks hard questions--hard ethical questions. There is nothing "easy" about the questions it raises. It's about right and wrong, justice and injustice, love and hate, fear and courage. It's grander in scope than the others in the series. And I think that is why I loved it so much. It's an intelligent little piece on the distribution of resources, of immigration, of prejudice, of politics and policies, of war-making propaganda.

Of course it also continues the narrative of Lina and Doon. The two children have brought a little over four hundred people along with them out of Ember and into the great big world. And the community of Sparks is what the people stumble across. This meeting of two very different peoples is fascinating. We get an inside-out-upside-down-outside in look at society and at humanity. The Emberites have known technology--toilets, sinks, electric lights, electric stoves, canned foods, etc. They know about medicine, aspirin, vitamins. But they don't know the basics. They don't know about the sun and moon and stars. The trees. The animals. They've never seen chickens and eggs. They don't understand about fire. They don't know about the seasons. The natural world is foreign to them. They don't know how to manually work and labor and provide for themselves. They don't have the skills to survive on their own. Both cultures are foreign to us readers in a way. And both are somewhat familiar as well.

The book is about the clashing of two peoples. About the misunderstanding, the miscommunication, the willful hatred and propagation of propaganda and blame.

It's just a thought-provoking novel.

The Prophet of Yonwood. The third in the Ember series.

This one is a prequel--probably set 250 (or so) years before the opening of The City of Ember. Our narrator is a young girl--an eleven year old--named Nickie. She's come to the town of Yonwood (in North Carolina) with her aunt. They are closing up her grandfather's house after his death. It's a strange circumstance really. The town of Yonwood is all abuzz about some "Prophet" who speaks the word of God. The town busy-body, Brenda Beeson, has never had it so good.

This is a strange little book. All about gossip, slander, propaganda, the lack of common sense, religious zeal and extremism, conformity and nonconformity, the danger of being different, political threats, terrorism threats, war-makers, and end-of-the-world mania. It's a thought provoking book in many ways. Nickie asks some good questions. Questions about right and wrong. Questions about how you can *know* that something is right or wrong. How you can *know* if God is speaking to someone. If it is God's *will* for something to happen (or not.) This book (like in some ways The People of Sparks and even The City of Ember) examines the mob mentality and going with the flow. Of accepting what you've been told instead of thinking and deciding for yourself.

Jeanne DuPrau's first three books (especially these last two) are all about big ideas, about philosophies, about morality and ethics.

01 Charger, the 160acrewoods, A Childhood of Dreams, A Christian Worldview of Fiction, All About Children's Books, And Another Book Read, Becky's Book Reviews, Book Review Maniac, Cafe of Dreams, Dolce Bellezza, Fireside Musings, Homeschool Buzz, Hyperbole, Looking Glass Reviews, Never Jam Today,Comax Valley Kids

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews