What
will the Bronx be like in 2035? In this posthumously published novel,
Walter Dean Myers takes readers on a journey into a vision of the near
future. That vision includes cars that drive themselves, a
concentration of power in the hands of a few, the rise of gated
communities, microchips embedded in humans at birth, and a spunky
protagonist named Dahlia. A fifteen-year-old math whiz whose mother
recently passed away, Dahlia lives on her own in a house with neighbors
she considers family in a western part of the Bronx. What does Dahlia
need to know to determine whether she and other bright teens can make a
difference while societies around the world seem to be heading towards
total atomization
and increasingly giving up autonomy to the rule of a few corporations?
This new novel will be of interest to fans of the late, great Myers, as
well as readers interested in dystopian futures and the role of
teenagers in averting disaster by becoming engaged citizens. With this
text Myers seems to have taken all of his contemporary concerns about
young people and woven them into a novel with his tried-and-true
structure. Seasoned readers will find his experiment with a teenaged
girl’s voice to be of interest. We eagerly await students’
verdicts. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber
Myers, Walter Dean. On A Clear Day. New York: HarperCollins, 2014.
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