The Girl Who Owned a City
A plague kills all the adults, leaving children to fend for themselves. This is the story of how Lisa figures it all out, using reason. She attacks each problem in turn and ultimately takes control of enough of the city to ensure the survival of the group that clusters around her.
This is Atlas Shrugged for children. Instead of a given world collapsing for lack of reality, reason and rights, we have an established chaos coming to order as one girl uses her reason to deal with reality and even come to understand rights.
The author is an Objectivist of some kind. In fact, Lisa finds inspiration reading _Atlas Shrugged_, a book alluded to, but never mentioned. (Later republications of the book have the reference to _Atlas Shrugged_ removed.)
More than that, this book contrasts well to Lord of the Flies. What happens to "children" without "adults" is an artificial problem, not much different than a book about "robots" or "aliens." The situation is there for the author and the reader to hassle out problems of identity and purpose. (Who are we, really?) Being a rational person, Nelson has written a book for children in which a child uses her mind to solve basic problems in survival.
(See my review and discussion on Rebirth of Reason here: http://rebirthofreason.com/Spirit/Books/...)
See also the Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Wh...
In addition, a graphic novel was created by Dan Jolley, Joëlle Jones and Jenn Manley Lee. Kirkus Reviews here:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-revie...
This is Atlas Shrugged for children. Instead of a given world collapsing for lack of reality, reason and rights, we have an established chaos coming to order as one girl uses her reason to deal with reality and even come to understand rights.
The author is an Objectivist of some kind. In fact, Lisa finds inspiration reading _Atlas Shrugged_, a book alluded to, but never mentioned. (Later republications of the book have the reference to _Atlas Shrugged_ removed.)
More than that, this book contrasts well to Lord of the Flies. What happens to "children" without "adults" is an artificial problem, not much different than a book about "robots" or "aliens." The situation is there for the author and the reader to hassle out problems of identity and purpose. (Who are we, really?) Being a rational person, Nelson has written a book for children in which a child uses her mind to solve basic problems in survival.
(See my review and discussion on Rebirth of Reason here: http://rebirthofreason.com/Spirit/Books/...)
See also the Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_Wh...
In addition, a graphic novel was created by Dan Jolley, Joëlle Jones and Jenn Manley Lee. Kirkus Reviews here:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-revie...
I figured out how to give the kids on Grand Avenue food, homes, and protection against the gangs. But Tom Logan and his army are determined to take away what we've built and rule the streets themselves. How long can we keep fighting them off? We need to find another place for us to live safely. A strong place. A secret place.
In a world like this, someone has to take charge. But do I have the strength to take charge of a whole city?" -- from Barnes and Noble here http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-girl...