Peggy Eddleman

When the prospect of a Middle Grade post-apocalyptic book was presented to me, I was over the moon. I'm a huge fan of MG fiction, but it seems like there's not a lot of it out there that stems into areas like this. Maybe it's because post-apocalyptic worlds aren't exactly happy places, but that just made me more excited to see how Peggy Eddleman would handle this in her debut novel.

What first struck me as odd was the fact that the science aspect of this book really doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm all for suspending disbelief to enjoy a book. If people can fly, and you explain to me why that's true, I'll happily follow along. In this case, Sky Jumpers tried its best to make sense of a world where very few people remain, and invention is the only thing that matters besides survival. I was tossed into a world where only primitive technology remains, and people put a heavy-handed emphasis on invention. If you don't invent, or you can't invent, you're an outcast. Or, you're our main character. Somehow she seems to be the only one who falls into this category.

That being said, I could have let most of that go, except that the questions that I had kept compounding. Characters in MG novels do all manner of amazing things. They set off on epic quests, save villages, and most of the time all by themselves. Nonetheless, my mind simply wouldn't wrap itself around the fact that Hope was in this role. Setting off into a blizzard with your very injured best friend and his five year old sister just doesn't make sense. Add in the fact that "Bomb's Breath", the very thing that kills people who try to enter the valley and is their only protection from outside, can be walked through by simply holding your breath? I'm so very confused.

Truthfully, this was a quick enough read. Hope and her friends were well written, and I could actually see the twelve year old persona in their thoughts and actions. That's where my enjoyment of this story hit a wall though. There was too much that just didn't mesh. I think if this were a Fantasy story, something where we're encouraged to let go of anything true (like scientific fact), I would have liked this more.… (meer)

Sky Jumpers may be Peggy Eddleman's debut novel but I certainly hope it isn't her last (especially with these characters and this world). It has been entirely too long since I read children's fiction and probably even longer than that since I really lost myself in it. The world that she created and the characters that inhabited it were so engrossing that I ripped my way through the book in no time at all. Sky Jumpers is an adventure set in the future when we've gone back to our agrarian roots and it is impossible to reach the level of industrialization we once took for granted. Fraught with danger and uncertainty, the world is a completely different place than the one we know. I wouldn't characterize this as a dystopian novel by any means. The world is far from horrendous and the characters are (for the most part) happy and living in harmony. Nothing is perfect, however, and that's where the excitement of the narrative comes into play. This would be an ideal book for children in late elementary and early middle school grades (or adults who enjoy children's literature).… (meer)