"Welcome to the Ark" by Stephanie Tolan

I was prepared to dislike this book. I chose to read it after a colleague expressed concern that her elementary-aged daughter was asked to read it in class. It was, she felt, far too dark for a fifth grade child. I really wasn't up for yet another apocalyptic, dystopic, violent book. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the plot is *not* another apocalyptic novel. Although violence paints the background of the story, the book mostly focuses on the journeys of self-discovery by four gifted children who are committed to an upscale mental health facility when their unique differences cannot be tolerated by mainstream society. Think more "Escape to Witch Mountain" than "Hunger Games." I found the characters of Miranda, Doug, Taryn and Elijah to be interesting and fun. For the first two-thirds of the book, I liked the various twists and turns and found the mix of prose with poetry and "memos" to be a nice way of moving the tale forward. The book's weakness, in my humble opinion, is not its violence but the degree to which the story is dated. Written in the mid-1990s, Ms. Tolen drew on the explosion of computer technology and the growth of militia groups under the Clinton presidency to predict a "near future" (1999) where the U.S. is besieged by internal and border violence and people are just learning how to connect to one another on the " 'nets." The passage of time has not been kind to this book. In the age of Twitter and Facebook, the awkward electronic interactions depicted are nearly laughable. The unimaginable that has occurred since the printing of this book -- Oklahoma City, Columbine and 9/11, showed our ultimate ability as a society to rise above violence and find our humanity in the face of darkness rather than be consumed by it. Beyond our growth in technology and our powerful history in the last 12 years or so, the book still feels mired in the past. Harking back to a 1970s morality tale, the last third of the book relies on hokey discussions of extra-sensory perception and a hippie-esque wholesomeness ("Goodness overcomes all") that was too much to stomach. In the end, it made for an "okay" read on a snow-day, but not something I would recommend as a class read. I don't feel the violence was over-the-top, but I do feel the writing style and vocabulary were more suited to middle school than elementary. It was a notable book and the first half was good, so it is likely to stick around for a while, but IMHO it has gone past its expiration date. Perhaps it could be used in a Creative Writing class. Given what we know now -- how should the book end?