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Remembering Green
It is the year 2200. Global warming has covered most of the Earth in sea. The Tekkies survive on dwindling resources, but they need rain. A sacrifice is needed, something wild. But one African girl with her lion cub, Saa, still carries the old knowledge and is determined to thwart the Tekkies.
111 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2009
3 people are currently reading
17 people want to read
About the author
Lesley Beake
56 books13 followersLesley Beake has been involved with writing and editing children’s stories for twenty years now and has published nearly seventy books. All her stories are set in Africa and are rich in African imagery and landscape. They vary from picture books for the very young, to novels for teenagers, with a good spread of stories for all ages in between.
Much of her work involves writing for readers who are reading in English as their second, third, or even fourth language. The challenge of corresponding a reading level with an interest level is helped by her background in primary school teaching and in teaching English as a Foreign Language in the Middle East for the British Council.
Lesley also has a wide portfolio of travel writing, radio broadcasting and website work. She was editor of two major South African travel publications and of the Air Malawi in-flight magazine and currently manages and edits a website for San communities at www.kalaharipeoples.net.
Her books have been translated into numerous languages, worldwide and in Africa, and she has received many awards for her books. But the greatest satisfaction comes with meeting the young people who actually read her books – and in typing the last word of the manuscript in hand!
Much of her work involves writing for readers who are reading in English as their second, third, or even fourth language. The challenge of corresponding a reading level with an interest level is helped by her background in primary school teaching and in teaching English as a Foreign Language in the Middle East for the British Council.
Lesley also has a wide portfolio of travel writing, radio broadcasting and website work. She was editor of two major South African travel publications and of the Air Malawi in-flight magazine and currently manages and edits a website for San communities at www.kalaharipeoples.net.
Her books have been translated into numerous languages, worldwide and in Africa, and she has received many awards for her books. But the greatest satisfaction comes with meeting the young people who actually read her books – and in typing the last word of the manuscript in hand!
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 28, 2013
Remembering Green is a science fiction book by Lesley Beake. The setting of Remembering Green is in Africa. It is mostly at the southern tip, but one part of it takes place near the Sahara Desert where the main character, Rain, used to live. The time is 2025, and global warming has melted the glaciers at the poles. The water has risen and covered most of Earth as a result. The Tekkies are a group of people who live isolated from everyone else on an island. The island is protected from the rising water with steel walls. Nobody goes outside those walls unless they have to.
Even though the Tekkies are safe from the rising water, they don’t have any water to drink. It hasn’t rained for years. The Tekkies have heard rumors about a child who lives near the Sahara Desert. The rumors say that the child, a girl, can bring the rain. The girl’s name is Rain.
Rain lives among the River People. She is their princess. Rain is special; she is bound to a lion by an ancient ritual. There is a legend that the next child bound to a lion will be able to bring rain. Global Warming has caused glaciers to melt, but it hasn’t rained freshwater for years.
The Tekkies came in the night. They kidnapped the princess of the River People and her precious lion. They brought Rain and her lion, Saa, to their island. They hoped that Rain knew how to make it rain. Rain had no idea that the Tekkies thought that she could make the rain come. Rain had no idea why she was kidnapped.
Rain was free to do whatever she wants on the island, but she couldn’t leave. Her only job was to take care of Saa, who was imprisoned in a cell underground. Rain only had one friend other than Saa. Rain’s friend was named Eva. Eva’s grandfather was one of the people in charge of the Tekkies, and he secretly wanted Eva to spy on Rain. Eva never actually liked Rain.
Rain was kept in the dark about a lot of things. The biggest was that Rain was going to be a sacrifice. The rain will come, the Tekkies thought, if they sacrificed a wild lion and a child named Rain.
Upon discovery of the sacrifice the Tekkies have planned for Rain, Rain tries desperately to escape with her lion. There is another boy who is secretly living on the island. He is one of the River People, and he was awake when Rain was kidnapped. The boy is named Ghau. He followed the kidnappers when they took Rain from her home. Ghau tells Rain that he will help her escape.
Rain catches Eva running to the government building, and Rain guesses that Eva is not everything she says she is.
With the help of Ghau, Eva finds a secret door that leads to the exterior of the island. Rain frees Saa and together, they go to the door. Before Rain can open the door, the door is opened from the outside. Eva had told her grandfather where and how Rain planned to escape, so five Tekkies were waiting to stop Rain from leaving the island. The Tekkies were led by Eva, who got impatient and opened the door.
It turns out that Ghau is really good at fighting, and he quickly disarms the soldiers. Ghau, Rain, and Saa flee the island and escape to freedom.
I did not like this book. First of all, it was 111 pages, so the author barely had time to introduce to storyline before the book was over. The book started with Rain being captured. How did the kidnappers find out about Rain and her lion? Rain and her lion were kept a secret even from the River People. How was Ghau able to follow the kidnappers when they had excellent hearing? There were too many important questions that were not answered. The storyline was meant for a longer book. If the author wanted to make a 100 page book, she should have made the plot simpler. It wasn’t even explained how it took just 15 years for some humans to adapt and become Tekkies. It takes a lot longer than 15 years for a species to adapt to their changing environment. I did not like Remembering Green. It left out too much detail, was shorter than it should have been, and was unrealistic.
Even though the Tekkies are safe from the rising water, they don’t have any water to drink. It hasn’t rained for years. The Tekkies have heard rumors about a child who lives near the Sahara Desert. The rumors say that the child, a girl, can bring the rain. The girl’s name is Rain.
Rain lives among the River People. She is their princess. Rain is special; she is bound to a lion by an ancient ritual. There is a legend that the next child bound to a lion will be able to bring rain. Global Warming has caused glaciers to melt, but it hasn’t rained freshwater for years.
The Tekkies came in the night. They kidnapped the princess of the River People and her precious lion. They brought Rain and her lion, Saa, to their island. They hoped that Rain knew how to make it rain. Rain had no idea that the Tekkies thought that she could make the rain come. Rain had no idea why she was kidnapped.
Rain was free to do whatever she wants on the island, but she couldn’t leave. Her only job was to take care of Saa, who was imprisoned in a cell underground. Rain only had one friend other than Saa. Rain’s friend was named Eva. Eva’s grandfather was one of the people in charge of the Tekkies, and he secretly wanted Eva to spy on Rain. Eva never actually liked Rain.
Rain was kept in the dark about a lot of things. The biggest was that Rain was going to be a sacrifice. The rain will come, the Tekkies thought, if they sacrificed a wild lion and a child named Rain.
Upon discovery of the sacrifice the Tekkies have planned for Rain, Rain tries desperately to escape with her lion. There is another boy who is secretly living on the island. He is one of the River People, and he was awake when Rain was kidnapped. The boy is named Ghau. He followed the kidnappers when they took Rain from her home. Ghau tells Rain that he will help her escape.
Rain catches Eva running to the government building, and Rain guesses that Eva is not everything she says she is.
With the help of Ghau, Eva finds a secret door that leads to the exterior of the island. Rain frees Saa and together, they go to the door. Before Rain can open the door, the door is opened from the outside. Eva had told her grandfather where and how Rain planned to escape, so five Tekkies were waiting to stop Rain from leaving the island. The Tekkies were led by Eva, who got impatient and opened the door.
It turns out that Ghau is really good at fighting, and he quickly disarms the soldiers. Ghau, Rain, and Saa flee the island and escape to freedom.
I did not like this book. First of all, it was 111 pages, so the author barely had time to introduce to storyline before the book was over. The book started with Rain being captured. How did the kidnappers find out about Rain and her lion? Rain and her lion were kept a secret even from the River People. How was Ghau able to follow the kidnappers when they had excellent hearing? There were too many important questions that were not answered. The storyline was meant for a longer book. If the author wanted to make a 100 page book, she should have made the plot simpler. It wasn’t even explained how it took just 15 years for some humans to adapt and become Tekkies. It takes a lot longer than 15 years for a species to adapt to their changing environment. I did not like Remembering Green. It left out too much detail, was shorter than it should have been, and was unrealistic.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 3, 2010
About a 2.5 This seemed like a fascinating premise for a story - the year 2200 and global warming has covered most of the earth in sea - but it just didn't deliver. A young African girl and the lion cub she is bonded with are kidnapped and taken to a fortified island that is surviving on dwindling resources. The "Tekkies" who live there seem to have advanced technology, so it is unclear just why they need to sacrifice Rain and the lion. Rather confusing and somewhat lame and disappointing in it's delivery.
May 26, 2010
What will happen if all the terrible predictions of global warming come true? Remembering Green attempts to create a world that has been swallowed up by melted ice caps and glaciers. Interesting plot idea but the author just didn't deliver a story I could either buy or care about. This was a Junior Library Guild selection so I might be totally missing the boat on this, but I wouldn't recommend it.
May 4, 2018
This was a very challenging read for me. It was hard to understand about 30% of the time. The rest you just had to put together by continuing to read, and eventually it all made sense. A girl named Rain had a peaceful life in Africa, connecting lions and people together, through her pet lion Saa. She was abruptly kidnapped in the middle of the night and brought to an island full of “tekkies”. There, she plots to escape and go back to her beloved home in Africa.
April 15, 2018
It was an interesting book because it spoke of how the modern world sacrifices people, spiritually and physically, in order to perpetuate the death machine. It was a story of the courage it takes to recognize how the modern world tries to kill spirits, and of what it takes to overcome.
December 5, 2011
Remembering Green
by Lesley Beake
The best thing about this short book is that it's short. Rain is African, that much is clear from this story that reads like a legend or tale, and she is the Lion Girl. When she was young, her grandmother gave her a lion cub to raise, and according to prophecy Rain and her lion will bring rains back to a dry Earth. Apparently, the Earth is now a mess because of global warming, and some smart people, "the Tekkies" live on an island with a dome over it. Rain is kidnapped from her home in an African village by some travelors and taken to the dome. The Tekkies in the dome think that she will save them from a horrible thing that hasn't happened yet. The story left me with tons of questions. First of all, if the world was destroyed, how can Rain live in the wilds with her lion, named Saa, and have memories of playing in the river back home? Who are the people who kidnap her? Why? Why would Tekkies, with so much control over their technology, think a girl and her lion could help them survive some disaster? What disaster do they fear—they already live under a dome! I left this book with more questions than answers, and while the words the writer uses are pretty, I felt a little cheated at the end.
by Lesley Beake
The best thing about this short book is that it's short. Rain is African, that much is clear from this story that reads like a legend or tale, and she is the Lion Girl. When she was young, her grandmother gave her a lion cub to raise, and according to prophecy Rain and her lion will bring rains back to a dry Earth. Apparently, the Earth is now a mess because of global warming, and some smart people, "the Tekkies" live on an island with a dome over it. Rain is kidnapped from her home in an African village by some travelors and taken to the dome. The Tekkies in the dome think that she will save them from a horrible thing that hasn't happened yet. The story left me with tons of questions. First of all, if the world was destroyed, how can Rain live in the wilds with her lion, named Saa, and have memories of playing in the river back home? Who are the people who kidnap her? Why? Why would Tekkies, with so much control over their technology, think a girl and her lion could help them survive some disaster? What disaster do they fear—they already live under a dome! I left this book with more questions than answers, and while the words the writer uses are pretty, I felt a little cheated at the end.
June 7, 2011
I really like the idea of this book and think that the writing is beautiful but the story is sort of disturbingly not completely developed. That is, it never feels real. It is sort of too simple and yet too many lose ends don't seem to quite get tied up in a satisfying way at the end. the romance in it seems completely undeveloped and almost obligatory and the supporting characters don't seem to become fully developed. I like that it is a short story and love the setting in southern Africa and Cape Town (I'd love to know where Beake supposes that Rain begins and ends her story) but it just doesn't come together correctly to create a quality piece of literature. It's almost as if it needs to be rewritten five or six more times until Beake finds the right way to tell this story in a satisfying way.
March 10, 2016
This book was not very easy to read due to the authors choice of formatting the story. The author did not include that many details of important things in the book but included lots of details in non important parts. The last chapter of the book was very hard for me to comprehend since it was about how Rain felt to be back at home. I think the author should have described more about the efforts of Rain and Ghau to get off of the island. It was definitely difficult considering that they had to bring Saa along with them. I think that you would enjoy this book if you take interests in kidnapping and escaping before a certain thing happens.
June 12, 2015
Remembering Green by Lesley Beake – 2009 – Science Fiction – 4h grade and up – Why would someone kidnap a girl and lion from her tribe? Why would a community build a home on top of a mountain without finding a way to have prolonged fresh water? Enjoy the book set in 2200 which has a glimpse of a twisted community of haves and have nots not exactly living in harmony. Will a girl provide hope for the future? Will she be able to save her beloved lion? This book will stick with you for a long while.
July 7, 2016
When I first picked up Remembering Green and read the splurge on the back, I thought it was going to be a book about the effect of global warming on the future with an additional animal flare because of the pet lion. This book was really short and not much of a complete story. I feel like some kids may like it because it is interesting, but I don't think it has many of the components to make a good book. It is about an African girl who gets taken from her village and is a lion tamer. I think it should have been longer and gone more in depth with the characters and story.
August 19, 2011
Not the best dystopic book I've read.
October 27, 2014
I thought that this boook was pretty good. A very good fantasy book.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews