May 1, 2011
Gr 8 Up-This sequel to Num8ers (Scholastic, 2010) doesn't disappoint. Fifteen-year-old Adam, the son of Jem and her lover for too brief a time, Spider, has inherited his mother's ability to see peoples' death dates in their eyes. Unfortunately, the loss of Jem to cancer causes him to retreat into isolation and rage. Things only get worse when his father's grandmother brings him back to her London flat and enrolls him in school where he begins to notice that almost everyone he meets has the same death date-01012027, which is only six months away. Then he meets Sarah, sensitive, artistic, and pregnant, who is fighting her own demons. Together they must learn to trust and heal and, hopefully, survive the inevitable cataclysm. The Chaos is every bit as good as the first novel in the trilogy. The premise of unavoidable disaster is chillingly plausible as Ward incorporates elements of global warming and increasing seismic activity-which hits just a bit too close to home given the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.-Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage Public Library, AK
Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
April 15, 2011
Grades 8-12 Adam has the unwelcome gift of being able to look into a persons eyes and see exactly what date and how they will die. When he sees too many people with the death date of 01012027, he decides to go public. His story alternates chapters with a second narrator, Sarah, an abused girl pregnant with her fathers child who sees the future in terrifyingly detailed dreams. Ward delicately weaves the threads of their futures together with love, fear, and guilt. Although not as artfully composed as the first title, Numbers (2010), this sequel again delivers an action-driven plot with a thoughtful meditation on the nature of prescience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)
May 1, 2011
In this sequel to Numbers a fascinating premise is again worked out through gripping episodes and a lightly handled metaphysical dilemma. When Adam Dawson looks in someone's eyes, he can see the date that person will die. But unlike his late mother, Adam can also sense how people will die, and, alarmingly, he foresees thousands of deaths from fire, crushing, and drowning on "01012027." When he meets a girl named Sarah whose numbers bespeak a peaceful transition fifty years hence in his own arms, he's immediately enamored, but Sarah fears him: in a recurring nightmare, the pregnant Sarah has seen Adam carrying her baby into the flames on January 1, 2027, mere months away. Although Adam's mum warned him never to tell anyone about the numbers, he wonders whether to break his silence in order to warn people of the coming catastrophe; meanwhile, he and Sarah fight their growing attraction in the hope that if they stay apart, the prophetic dreams won't come true. Poignant characters balance gritty street talk and a tough demeanor against the tender and conscientious impulses they frequently give in to, without ever veering into caricature. A surprising resolution may or may not break a rule Ward invented for her creation, but readers propelled through the work by the driving action will be glad simply to have arrived, gratified, on the other side. anita l. burkam
(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)