Nation: Terry Pratchett

Title: Nation
Author: Terry Pratchett
Publisher: HarperCollins

Media Format: Book
Genre: Speculative Fiction
Selection Source: YALSA Top 10 Books for YAs 2009
Reading Audience: All YAs+
Reading Recommendation: 4 ****
Curriculum Connection: none

Summary
Nation is set in a parallel universe with similarities to Victorian Age England. Almost all of it takes place on an island in the Pacific, known to its inhabitants as The Nation. After a tsunami wipes out everyone on the island, but a boy who was away on his manhood journey. It also wrecked a ship that killed everyone and everything on it except for a young girl and her Victorian sensibilities. It's one of those classic tales that must appeal to humans on a deep level, because they're always being retold. It's a tale of two civilizations meeting, a tale of rebuilding a nation from the ground up, and a friendship tale about two people from alien civilizations who learn to communicate and understand each other.

Evaluation
This story of two cultures meeting and of friendship should appeal to many readers. It allows us to relive and rewrite our tragic history of the meeting of civilizations. We realize that things might have worked out better if those people who met in 1492 had the sense and curiosity of young people. It is really a leisure reading book, but one that has the potential to teach and provoke thoughts.