Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The Ninja Reviews...The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in a fundamentalist community with three mothers, 20 siblings, and only one father. Her isolation and strict religion have forced her to burn books and turn away from anything outside her compound. Though her entire community is under the scrutiny of the Prophet, Kyra is a secret patron of the Mobile Library on Wheels and opens up her once small world into one that incorporates everything from Anne of Green Gables to Harry Potter. She also meets with one of the teenage boys in her compound with the hopes that one day he will choose her for a wife, instead of having the choice made for her. Instead the Prophet decrees that Kyra will be the seventh wife of her sixty-year-old uncle. Her family desperately seeks to change these circumstances but threats are made and the stakes for her refusal are too high a cost. The decision Kyra is faced with will change her life and her family's life forever.

This is the kind of novel that a person can easily read in one sitting, it is that gripping. Teenage readers will easily relate to Kyra's feelings of longing and independence, but they will also be curious about Kyra's conservative, fundamentalist lifestyle.

Recommended for all teens. Will be available in May 2009.

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