The City of Ember is about a small group of people who live in complete darkness, save for a few electric lights which fill their houses and corner the ends of the city streets. The city is small, and its history goes back several hundred years, but the only real history any member of the city has relates to a group of people called “The Builders. ” As far as the inhabitants of Ember know, “The Builders” created Ember from nothing. It just exists.

And life in this city is difficult, the children go to school until age twelve, and then they enter the workforce to fulfill the needs of the city’s population. Some send messages about the town, some work in a place called “the pipeworks” (a place in the city where power is generated to run those elctric lights in the houses and on streetcorners), some work in shops to regulate the handing-out of necessary food and lightbulbs to the inhabitants of the city.

These are difficult jobs to undertake at the age of 12, but the major characters of this story, Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow, do so with a sense of urgency — the city seems to be running out of supplies. People survive on plants which can grow in a nocturnal environment; clothing is scarece and is therefore recycled over and over and over, leaving its inhabitants to wear dingly, threadbare items. And lately the power has been flikering in and out — sometimes for a few seconds, and sometimes for minutes on end.

There’s no way to tell when it might go out forever. Lina and Doon worry about the possibility of life without life, and they work together to find a solutions to the problems of the city. I Liked in this book how there was alot of adventure. I didnt like how the king was so greedy. I would recommend this book to kids over the age of 10. Anybody who likes adventure will like this book. This book encouraged me to read the second book.