The Copper Elephant - Softcover

On the Shelf, the miserable are corralled together to meet their fates. Elders are taken away in the Flying Fox and never seen again. The Undertwelves are tattooed with numbers and marched off to the Pits--a worse circle of this inferno, where these Digit Kids are forced to break rocks with splittingpicks until they fall down dead. Thanks to the brave kindness of a coffin builder, 11-year-old Whensday has managed to escape the Pits. She takes refuge for a time helping Tick Burrowman build his bodyboxes, but when she fears he's going to sell her, she runs away to the Bone Trees. There she meets Honeycut and Oakley, two other children who have eluded the Pits, and the three make an effort at raw survival.

Whensday tells this gripping, memorable story with the frankness of a child and in a dialect that reflects the brutal reality of the new world order. In such a place there is no time for proper grammar, and words must be invented for each fresh hell (homes are now mere "life holes," the primary food is "cornslop," and coughed up phlegm is "lungpuddles"). But somehow, amid the horror, Rapp manages to weave impressive beauty and hope. Whensday is a character to fall in love with and root for, who understands "Strength don't always come from muscles and size. Sometimes it comes from that stuff that hides in your spit." Most of all, she helps us appreciate the small things: a bird's nest, a spoon, an elephant made of foil. --Brangien Davis