Ludlow Fitch escapes the terror of his daily life in the City and finds himself in the small mountain village of Pagus Parvus. His timely arrival coincides with that of Joe Zabbidou, The Secret Pawnbroker. Joe and Ludlow have many interesting midnight meetings with the Pagus Parvians as they try to rid themselves of the nasty Jeremiah Ratchet who owns most of the village. Joe Zabbidou eventually helps Ludlow cope with his own secrets and make a better life for himself in the process. Ludlow also discovers the truth behind The Black Book of Secrets.
The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages. Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...
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