I recently finished reading the sequel to The City of Ember, The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau.

I read City of Ember years ago and had seen the movie. I really liked it as it reminded me of my own books. I especially remember loving the ending where the kids come up into the green world full of trees and plants and the blue sky. But I don’t think I knew there was a series…

The People of Sparks begins shortly after where Ember ended. I wish I could say more to this, but it’s really been too long. I mostly remember that I enjoyed the book, but not many details. Sparks is less about the new strange aboveground world (although there’s quite a lot of that at the beginning; What’s gasoline? What’s antibiotics?) and more about the friction caused by a sudden mass of refugees overwhelming a small village with limited resources.

Unlike the last book I wrote about, Where the Crawdads Sing, People of Sparks is a much simpler writing style and for a seemingly younger audience. It took a false start or two for me to get into it because of this, but once I got going there was no problem. It was a good read and still included a few twists and turns I didn’t see coming. And I loved the ending being with a lightbulb and a sense of hope, as I remember the cover of the first book having a lightbulb on it and it ending with hope. I’m a sucker for happy endings.

I went ahead and looked up the next book in the series and downloaded it from my local library so I wouldn’t have to wait over the weekend to check it out from my school library. I discovered that the next book in the series is a prequel, so that will be interesting. Sometimes people have suggested I write a prequel to the Seed Savers series…

Have you read The City of Ember or any of the sequels? What do you think?

Sandra Smith is the author of the awesome and award-winning middle grade/YA series, Seed Savers. Visit her Facebook and Pinterest pages. Follow her on Twitter. Sign up for the newsletter!