THE CITY OF EMBER By: Johnny Reider

Characters ► Doon: Doon is 12 years old. He works at the pipe works. He is interested in bugs, and how things work, but he is mostly interested in how the generator works. ► Lina: Lina is 12 years old. Her first job was pipe works then she traded jobs with Doon, and now she is a messenger. She lives with her grandmother and baby sister. ► The mayor is a rotten and mean guy who is secretly stealing Ember’s supplies. ► Lina’s Grandmother: Grandmother is searching for something but she doesn’t really know what it is. ► Mrs. Murdo: Mrs. Murdo takes in Lina and her baby sister after their grandmother dies. She finds the note that Doon and Lina drop after they escape from Ember.

Setting ► The book takes place in a city called Ember. ► Ember is a very depressing and dark place. ► There is no sunlight, just electricity, which turns off at 9:30 every night. ► They don’t know about flash lights or matches or candles so if they go outside of the city it is pitch black and they see nothing.

Conflict/problem ► Ember is running short on everything such as food, light bulbs and tools to fix the generator, which means the lights are going out more and more often. ► Another conflict that has to do with shortages is that the mayor is taking all the food and light bulbs for himself.

Solution ► Lina finds what she thinks are the instructions to get out (which they are). But Lina’s baby sister has ripped them into pieces so she and Doon have to piece them together and there are missing pieces. First they do it wrong and that’s when they find out that the mayor is stealing the food and light bulbs. Then they unscramble it some more and find the way out! ► The city all comes together on Thursday to sing together so Doon and Lina try to tell the whole city both things on the day of the singing. But they tell the chief guard the day before and he trusts them at first but then the next day the guards are coming after them for “spreading vicious rumors”. When Doon and Lina see the posters they decide to go by themselves.