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Gone / Michael Grant.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: Grant, Michael, Gone novel ; 1.Publisher: London, England : Electric Monkey, 2018Copyright date: ©2008Edition: 10th anniversary editionDescription: 559 pages : maps ; 21 cmContent type:
  • text
  • cartographic image
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781405292320 (paperback)
Subject(s): Summary: In the blink of an eye all the adults disappear in a small town in southern California and no one knows why. First a car crash; a house up in flames; then a complete communication meltdown... Suddenly cut off from the outside world, those that are left are trapped, and there's no help on the way. They must do all they can to survive. Chaos rules the streets. Gangs begin to form. Sides are chosen - strong or weak. Cruel or humane. A new world order is rising, and, even scarier, some survivors have power - power that no one has ever seen before...
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Call number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Teenage Fiction Davis (Central) Library Teenage Fiction Teenage Fiction GRAN Checked out 07/04/2024 T00854598
Teenage Fiction Davis (Central) Library Teenage Fiction Teenage Fiction GRAN Available T00800447
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In the blink of an eye all the adults disappear in a small town in southern California and no one knows why. First a car crash; a house up in flames; then a complete communication meltdown... Suddenly cut off from the outside world, those that are left are trapped, and there's no help on the way. They must do all they can to survive. Chaos rules the streets. Gangs begin to form. Sides are chosen - strong or weak. Cruel or humane. A new world order is rising, and, even scarier, some survivors have power - power that no one has ever seen before...

Originally published: USA : HarperTeen, 2008.

In the blink of an eye all the adults disappear in a small town in southern California and no one knows why. First a car crash; a house up in flames; then a complete communication meltdown... Suddenly cut off from the outside world, those that are left are trapped, and there's no help on the way. They must do all they can to survive. Chaos rules the streets. Gangs begin to form. Sides are chosen - strong or weak. Cruel or humane. A new world order is rising, and, even scarier, some survivors have power - power that no one has ever seen before...

12 - 17 years.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Gone Chapter One 299 hours, 54 minutes One minute the teacher was talking about the Civil War. And the next minute he was gone. There. Gone. No "poof." No flash of light. No explosion. Sam Temple was sitting in third-period history class staring blankly at the blackboard, but far away in his head. In his head he was down at the beach, he and Quinn. Down at the beach with their boards, yelling, bracing for that first plunge into cold Pacific water. For a moment he thought he had imagined it, the teacher disappearing. For a moment he thought he'd slipped into a daydream. Sam turned to Mary Terrafino, who sat just to his left. "You saw that, right?" Mary was staring hard at the place where the teacher had been. "Um, where's Mr. Trentlake?" It was Quinn Gaither, Sam's best, maybe only, friend. Quinn sat right behind Sam. The two of them favored window seats because sometimes if you caught just the right angle, you could actually see a tiny sliver of sparkling water between the school buildings and the homes beyond. "He must have left," Mary said, not sounding like she believed it. Edilio, a new kid Sam found potentially interesting, said, "No, man. Poof." He did a thing with his fingers that was a pretty good illustration of the concept. Kids were staring at one another, craning their necks this way and that, giggling nervously. No one was scared. No one was crying. The whole thing seemed kind of funny. "Mr. Trentlake poofed?" said Quinn, with a suppressed giggle in his voice. "Hey," someone said, "where's Josh?" Heads turned to look. "Was he here today?" "Yes, he was here. He was right here next to me." Sam recognized the voice. Bette. Bouncing Bette. "He just, you know, disappeared," Bette said. "Just like Mr. Trentlake." The door to the hallway opened. Every eye locked on it. Mr. Trentlake was going to step in, maybe with Josh, and explain how he had pulled off this magic trick, and then get back to talking in his excited, strained voice about the Civil War nobody cared about. But it wasn't Mr. Trentlake. It was Astrid Ellison, known as Astrid the Genius, because she was . . . well, she was a genius. Astrid was in all the AP classes the school had. In some subjects she was taking online courses from the university. Astrid had shoulder-length blond hair, and liked to wear starched white short-sleeved blouses that never failed to catch Sam's eye. Astrid was out of his league, Sam knew that. But there was no law against thinking about her. "Where's your teacher?" Astrid asked. There was a collective shrug. "He poofed," Quinn said, like maybe it was funny. "Isn't he out in the hallway?" Mary asked. Astrid shook her head. "Something weird is happening. My math study group . . . there were just three of us, plus the teacher. They all just disappeared." "What?" Sam said. Astrid looked right at him. He couldn't look away like he normally would, because her gaze wasn't challenging, skeptical like it usually was: it was scared. Her normally sharp, discerning blue eyes were wide, with way too much white showing. "They're gone. They all just . . . disappeared." "What about your teacher?" Edilio said. "She's gone, too," Astrid said. "Gone?" "Poof," Quinn said, not giggling so much now, starting to think maybe it wasn't a joke after all. Sam noticed a sound. More than one, really. Distant car alarms, coming from town. He stood up, feeling self-conscious, like it wasn't really his place to do so, and walked on stiff legs to the door. Astrid moved away so he could step past her. He could smell her shampoo as he went by. Sam looked left, down toward room 211, the room where Astrid's math wonks met. The next door down, 213, a kid stuck out his head. He had a half-scared, half-giddy expression, like someone buckling into a roller coaster. The other direction, down at 207, kids were laughing too loud. Freaky loud. Fifth graders. Across the hall, room 208, three sixth graders suddenly burst out into the hallway and stopped dead. They stared at Sam, like he might yell at them. Perdido Beach School was a small-town school, with everyone from kindergarten to ninth grade all in one building, elementary and middle school together. High school was an hour's drive away in San Luis. Sam walked toward Astrid's classroom. She and Quinn were right behind him. The classroom was empty. Desk chairs, the teacher's chair, all empty. Math books lay open on three of the desks. Notebooks, too. The computers, a row of six aged Macs, all showed flickering blank screens. On the chalkboard you could quite clearly see "Polyn." "She was writing the word 'polynomial,'" Astrid said in a church-voice whisper. "Yeah, I was going to guess that," Sam said dryly. "I had a polynomial once," Quinn said. "My doctor removed it." Astrid ignored the weak attempt at humor. "She disappeared in the middle of writing the 'o.' I was looking right at her." Sam made a slight motion, pointing. A piece of chalk lay on the floor, right where it would have fallen if someone were writing the word "polynomial"--whatever that meant--and had disappeared before rounding off the "o." "This is not normal," Quinn said. Quinn was taller than Sam, stronger than Sam, at least as good a surfer. But Quinn, with his half-crazy half-smile and tendency to dress in what could only be called a costume--today it was baggy shorts, Army-surplus desert boots, a pink golf shirt, and a gray fedora he'd found in his grandfather's attic--put out a weird-guy vibe that alienated some and scared others. Quinn was his own clique, which was maybe why he and Sam clicked. Sam Temple kept a lower profile. He stuck to jeans and understated T-shirts, nothing that drew attention to himself. He had spent most of his life in Perdido Beach, attending this school, and everybody knew who he was, but few people were quite sure what he was. He was a surfer who didn't hang out with surfers. He was bright, but not a brain. He was good-looking, but not so that girls thought of him as a hottie. Gone . Copyright © by Michael Grant. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Gone by Michael Grant All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

School Library Journal Review

Gr 7 Up-"One minute the teacher was talking about the Civil War. And the next minute he was gone." Just vanished-along with everyone else over the age of 13 in a 20-mile radius around Perdido Beach, CA. The children left behind find themselves battling hunger, fear, and one another in a novel strongly reminiscent of William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Things go from bad to worse when some of the children begin exhibiting strange powers, animals show signs of freakish mutations, and people disappear as soon as they turn 14. Though an excellent premise for a novel, Gone suffers from a couple of problems. First, it is just too long. After opening with a bang, the initial 200 or so pages limp along before the action begins to really pick up. Secondly, based on the themes of violence, death, and implied sexual intimidation, this is clearly written for an older teen audience who may not appreciate the fact that no one in the book is older than 13. In spite of its faults, Gone is a gripping and gritty read with enough creepy gruesomeness to satisfy readers who have a taste for the macabre. Give this one to the readers who aren't quite ready for Stephen King or Dean Koontz.-Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage Public Library, AK (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* It's a scenario that every kid has dreamed about: adults suddenly disappear, and kids have free reign. In this case, though, it's everyone 14 and older who disappears, and the harsh reality of such unreal circumstances isn't a joyride after all. A girl driving with her grandfather plunges into a horrific car wreck; gas burners left on ignite a home with a young child trapped inside; food and medical supplies dwindle; and malicious youths take over as the remaining children attempt to set up some form of workable society. Even stranger than the disappearance of much of humanity, though, are the bizarre, sometimes terrifying powers that some of the kids are developing, not to mention the rapidly mutating animals or the impenetrable wall 20 miles in diameter that encircles them. This intense, marvelously plotted, paced, and characterized story will immediately garner comparisons to Lord of the Flies, or even the long-playing world shifts of Stephen King, with just a dash of X-Men for good measure. A potent mix of action and thoughtfulness centered around good and evil, courage and cowardice renders this a tour-de-force that will leave readers dazed, disturbed, and utterly breathless. Grant's novel is presumably the first in a series, and while many will want to scream when they find out the end is not the end, they'll be glad there's more in store.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2008 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Teens survive in a shifted world. Everyone in Perdido Beach over the age of 13 vanished one morning, leaving Sam and his friends to rebuild their community. Facing pressure from brutal prep-school interlopers, Sam hastens to uncover the mystery of the disappearances and gain control over his new powers--not-quite-laser beams that shoot from his hands and burn his enemies--all before his rapidly approaching 14th birthday. Seeking to blend David Lubar's Hidden Talents (1999) with Lord of the Flies, Grant's amalgamation of supernatural gifts and adult-free society instead leaves readers confused and unsatisfied. Weak characters and tepid action scenes create a sense of ennui that receives no respite from the convoluted plot and half-formed explanations. Sophisticated horror fans will recognize the mutated creatures and indescribable underground evil as a pale nod to Stephen King's Desperation (1996). Grant attempts to deal with too much, from autism to bulimia to divided families, and the thin writing is unable to sustain the weight of those issues. (Fantasy. 12 & up) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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