The Crystal Drop - Softcover

Grade 5-10-- By the year 2011, global warming and an enlarged hole in the ozone have turned southern Alberta, once a fertile plain, into a burning desert. Adolescent Megan has grown up watching her neighbors leave and her family's water supply dwindle. Abandoned by her father, she harbors few illusions about human or natural generosity. After her mother dies in childbirth, she and her 10-year-old brother, Ian, leave their home and walk west, toward Lundbreck Falls in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. There, in the last years of the 20th century, her Uncle Greg helped found a community called Gaia. Drawn by her vision of tumbling water, Megan coaxes and bullies Ian across the ravaged landscape. Every human they meet is a competitor for the scarce resources, from the bitter descendants of the Blackfoot people to survivalists who guard their water with bullets. Readers share Megan's growing horror as she begins to comprehend the enormity of the ecological disaster that is her legacy, and admire her grit as she struggles on. While the trumpet of doom sounds a bit too shrill, and the story ends abruptly, the flaws of this compelling survival story are outweighed by colorful writing, believable characters, and a palpable landscape. --Margaret A. Chang, North Adams State College, MA
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