Libyrinth
By Pearl North
(Tor Teen, Paperback, 9780765326874, 336pp.)
Publication Date: August 3, 2010
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Hardcover
Categories: Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Magic
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In her debut novel, Pearl North takes readers centuries into the future, to a forgotten colony of Earth where technology masquerades as magic and wars are fought over books.
Haly is a Libyrarian, one of a group of people dedicated to preserving and protecting the knowledge passed down from the Ancients and stored in the endless maze of books known as the Libyrinth. But Haly has a secret: the books speak to her.
When an attack by the hostile Eradicants drives her from her home, Haly learns that things are not at all what she thinks they are. Taken prisoner by the Eradicants, who believe the written word to be evil, she sees the world through their eyes and comes to understand that they are not the book-burning monsters that she has known her entire life.
The words of a young girl hiding in an Amsterdam attic and written hundreds of years before Haly’s birth will spark the interest of her captors and begin the change necessary to end the conflict between the Eradicants and Libyrarians. With the help of her loyal companion Nod, a creature of the Libyrinth, Haly must mend the rift between the two groups before their war for knowledge destroys them all. In doing so, Haly’s life—and the lives of everyone she knows—will never be the same.
A powerful adventure that unites the present and future, Libyrinth is a fresh, magical novel that will draw in young readers of all genres.
PEARL NORTH has written fantasy and science fiction for adults under a different name. Libyrinth is her first young adult novel. She lives outside of Detroit, Michigan.
“Among this novel’s pleasures are the many anonymous quotations scattered throughout, snatches of prose that Haly hears as she goes about her chores, from such sources as Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, Charlotte’s Web, and Fahrenheit 451, all of which are carefully identified at the end. The complex moral issues posed by this thoughtful and exciting tale are just as fascinating.” —Publishers Weekly
“An interesting twist on the themes of societal opposition and integration, and perhaps an intriguing companion to Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.” —Booklist
“Twists, turns and two resourceful heroines. I enjoyed getting lost in the Libyrinth.” —Maria V. Snyder, bestselling author of Fire Study
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