Skylark

by Meagan Spooner

Overview

Vis in magia, in vita vi. In magic there is power, and in power, life.

For fifteen years, Lark Ainsley waited for the day when her Resource would be harvested and she would finally be an adult. After the harvest she expected a small role in the regular, orderly operation of the City within the Wall. She expected to do her part to maintain the refuge for the last survivors of the Wars. She expected to be a tiny cog in the larger clockwork of the city.

Lark did not expect to become the City's power supply.

For fifteen years, Lark Ainsley believed in a lie. Now she must escape the only world she's ever known…or face a fate more unimaginable than death.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467731294
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/01/2013
Series:	Skylark Trilogy Series , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	344
Sales rank:	321,681
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	12 - 18 Years

About the Author

Meagan Spooner grew up reading and writing every spare moment of the day, while dreaming about life as an archaeologist, a marine biologist, an astronaut. She graduated from Hamilton College in New York with a degree in playwriting, and has spent several years since then living in Australia. She's traveled with her family all over the world to places like Egypt, South Africa, the Arctic, Greece, Antarctica, and the Galapagos, and there's a bit of every trip in every story she writes.

She currently lives and writes in Northern Virginia, but the siren call of travel is hard to resist, and there's no telling how long she’ll stay there.

In her spare time she plays guitar, plays video games, plays with her cat, and reads.

You can visit her online at http://www.meaganspooner.com.

Editorial Reviews

"This heavily anticipated dystopian debut mostly lives up to its hype. Lark Ainsley is 16, older than most kids when their Resource gets harvested. All she wants is to quietly contribute to the City's daily operation. But Lark finds out she is a Renewable, a hugely unfortunate creature who has the rare ability to power the City as it struggles to protect its citizens from the outside world long devastated by the ancient Wars. Held against her will and tortured in ways described with relentless, excruciating detail, Lark finally manages to escape. As she travels the blighted landscape of the world outside her domed City, she encounters terrors as seemingly benign as the sky (which she has never before seen) to those as treacherous as trees with razor teeth. Magic and technology blend seamlessly here, although the emphasis on exposition rather than dialogue sometimes bogs down the pages. The current demand for grim YA renditions of a dystopian future, plus the splashy landing, will likely ensure a significant readership for fans of the genre." --Booklist

From the Publisher

This debut novel depicts a dystopian world in which magic is disappearing. It is finally Lark’s turn to be harvested, to have her magic stripped away at the Institute run by an administrator whose falsely-friendly fa?ade soon gives way to true malice. The harvesting process is awful, but even more frightening is the woman hooked up to machines, an energy source for the city, whose telepathic plea is for Lark to flee. When the sixteen-year-old discovers a similar set-up being prepared for her, she escapes through the bubble that surrounds the city into the great unknown. Her telepathic instructions are to follow the birds and find the Iron Wood, where she will encounter others like her. This is easier said than done, especially when mechanical pixies come after her. She manages to destroy all but one, which joins her on her quest. Along the way, she encounters people who hunt in packs like wolves, turned into cannibalistic monsters by their lack of magic. She is saved by Oren, a feral young man who becomes her protector, until they discover his true identity. Once she reaches the Iron Wood, she has more questions than answers. While the people there are a renewable source of energy for the City to drain, her power is different, which she discovers when the City invades. The quest to find a way to save her world will continue in the next installment of this action-packed trilogy, that is also a thought-provoking examination of good and evil, survival, and man’s inhumanity to man. Ages 12 to 18.

VOYA - Bonnie Kunzel

While there is no clear line that typical teens cross to become adults in today's culture, Meagan Spooner relates an altogether different scenario. In Lark Ainsley's world, young teens cross that line through the harvest of their magical energy, or Resource. Lark keeps getting passed up and, at sixteen, feels relief and gratitude when her name is finally called. Yet, she shows up for the procedure with some trepidation, questioning what takes place during harvest. Will it hurt? While many assure her it does not, she comes face to face with the reality that it will—and that she should run at all costs! Nothing is as she believes, and Lark ends up needing to escape the only world she ever known. Set in a world of magic and danger, the post-apocalyptic novel makes readers feel as if they are by Lark's side as she struggles in a fight for survival at every turn. The fast-paced plot line will appeal to dystopian lovers everywhere. Reviewer: Bonita Herold

Children's Literature - Bonita Herold

Gr 8 Up—In this mildly interesting first book in a dystopian steampunk series, Lark intends to follow tradition and have her Resource (magic) harvested at the Institute when she's 16 and officially becomes an adult. Instead, she's held captive-to be forever linked with glass wires protruding from her veins to a machine to supply the city's power. Her Resource is different. She has the rare ability to renew it. Kris, a sympathetic Institute staff member, helps Lark escape. She crosses the Wall that surrounds their domed city to try to reach others like her living in the Iron Wood-a perilous journey through a wilderness filled with human cannibals. She's also being tracked by a tiny mechanical pixie. With the aid of a mysterious boy named Oren, she succeeds in finding the Iron Wood and is taken in, even though the people sense her magic's not like theirs. Kris shows up claiming that he had to escape because they found out he helped her. Then Lark discovers everything she's been told is a lie. She's not a Renewable and Oren's not who she thought he was. There is little explanation about how this dystopian world came about. The book focuses exclusively on Lark, and the rest of the characters are seriously underdeveloped. Lark's not even that interesting. Fortunately, Oren is. Readers who stick with the story may be rewarded with more fleshed-out characterizations in the next book, but it's doubtful that most teens will have that much patience.—Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton

School Library Journal

Another debut, another dystopia. For 15 years, Lark Ainsley, like all other children in the city, has longed to have her Resource harvested so she can begin life as a working citizen who contributes to the good of the whole. But Lark isn't like all the other children. When she discovers that the architects plan to use her unique brand of innate magic to power the entire city, she is forced to choose between living life as a glorified battery or venturing beyond the Wall, leaving everything and everyone she has ever known behind, to search the wilds for others of her kind. Hunted for a power she possesses but barely understands, Lark is forced to journey through a treacherous wilderness, with little more than a hope that she will find her way to the safe haven of the Iron Woods. Spooner's debut, the first in a planned trilogy, gets off to a bumpy start. Readers will likely be scratching their heads for a few chapters as they acclimate themselves to the rules and language of this dystopia. However, as the story becomes clear, readers will quickly find themselves invested in Lark's success. Though magic lends an interesting dimension to the narrative, at its heart, this is an intense story of survival and self-discovery. At the end, though, it doesn't stand out from the throng of like dystopias. Only for those who will read nothing else. (Dystopian adventure. 14 & up)

Kirkus Reviews