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Review: Matched

This series is an interesting read for fans of romance and dystopian societies.

Generally speaking, I am wary of bestselling books—particularly of the teen and young adult genre. It’s not that they’re all terrible; on the contrary, some of them are my favorites. But there are plenty of bestsellers out there—from the misogynistic Twilight series to the new popular and equally misogynistic 50 Shades of Gray to that horribly written fiasco The Shack that everyone begged me to read (though I couldn’t stomach more than a few pages)—that I want no part of.

So you can imagine that when I heard that Ally Condie’s Matched was the next “it” book (and series) to read for fans of dystopian literature like The Hunger Games, I was pretty skeptical. My sister, whose tastes run similar to my own, wasn’t a fan, so I didn’t think I’d be, either; I gave it a shot anyway.

It’s definitely no Hunger Games; let me say that right now. It’s much slower, much more relationship-based (though there’s plenty of other things happening), and much more naïve in terms of the main protagonist. However, though people aren’t starving to death (that we know of), there are plenty of chilling fascist policies—such as the Society’s control of your own death, your marital Match, your job, and even what foods you eat—and it’s not the vom-fest that is Twilight, even though there is the predictable love triangle that is found in so many YA books these days. (Note to YA authors—it’s okay to write books without them! They will be read!)

Condie’s book is an interesting one, and if you are a very imaginative soul who thrives on music, poetry, film, or general writing—all things that are strictly controlled or prohibited in this world—you will surely empathize with our heroine, whose glimpse at one rogue poem launches her into a full quest for something more than her world is giving her. Yes, the love triangle is a plot point too—the one that the book’s jacket and sales reps seem to push, of course—but the real story is about a girl named Cassia who turns sixteen and finds her entire world to be something that she never imagined.

There is rebellion, though it is mostly in terms of secrets and whispered messages; hints at deeper rebellion were provided, however, and I look forward to reading the sequels—the third of which is due out this year—to find out if we’ll have some war and maybe even a fall of this chilling society on our hands in the future.

Animals in Winter

A science picture book for children

Now that it’s snowing, my daughter has started to vocally express how fortunate we are to have a home to live in, and how sorrowful she is that many people do not. She’s finally begun to understand much of what we have been talking about in terms of homelessness. She’s also wondering just how all of the animals outside manage to survive in the wintertime without a house, so we picked up a science book about hibernation and migration called Animals in Winter. Written by Henrietta Bancroft and Richard G. Van Gelder, the book explains how many common animals survive the winter. It opens with some Asian American children playing, which I also liked; too many books feature white American children, leaving so many others left out. Birds and butterflies are discussed first, and some myths about migration are dispelled. Not all birds migrate, but we learn that both bluebirds and orioles do, as well as monarch butterflies. Not all bats migrate, either; some do, while others hibernate all winter long, like other mammals, and don’t even eat until spring.

I was amazed at how many different things I learned from this book, such as the different chambers a woodchuck digs for him or herself during hibernation, including a toilet chamber. They make their own secret entrance, as well as a watchtower area to be used as a lookout. I never realized how clever woodchucks were, and my daughter thought that it was pretty cool, too—to the point of wanting to create her own woodchuck den!

I also liked how it displayed each creature hibernating, which my daughter enjoyed seeing. She just could not believe that they sleep for that long without doing anything else. She also loved watching the pika, squirrel, and mouse find food and eat it during the winter. The thing is, she wanted to know why some animals don’t hibernate and some do; it seemed to me that the smallest ones were able to find the most food, and the larger ones would require more food to survive, so that’s what I told her my guess was. We had a good time guessing and testing which animals might hibernate and which ones wouldn’t after that, and looking up our guesses online.

This is a great little book with cute illustrations and valuable information for children and adults alike. If your children are looking for answers regarding animal hibernation and migration, this would be a good place to start.

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