First Light

Rebecca Stead
Wendy Lamb Books, 2007

In a colony carved out beneath an arctic glacier, Thea's people live a simple life, safe from the angry mobs that hunted their ancestors for witchcraft. But now their numbers have grown too large. They can barely sustain themselves. Thea wants to find a way to the surface, but her grandmother, the leader of their clan, has forbidden it.

Peter has never been to Greenland before. His father, a glaciologist, has always gone by himself on research trips, but this time Peter and both his parents are going all together. Once there, Peter begins to suspect that his mother and father are looking for something, something they won't tell him about.

Then Peter discovers a strange marking in the ice, Thea decodes an ancient map, and two worlds are about to collide.

First Light had me hooked in the first few pages with its exceptional prose and characters so alive I loved them at once. I had gone to the library looking for Rebecca Stead's Newbery winner, When You Reach Me, but according to the library's computer catalog, six other people had the same idea before I did. I will have to wait. In the mean time, I simply adored her science fiction arctic adventure mystery of a first novel. Recommended for ages ten and up.