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Summary
Summary
Winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature!
"Completely gripping." --People
"Dazzling." --The Observer
Geraldine McCaughrean--two-time Carnegie Medalist for Where the World Ends and Pack of Lies--takes readers on a spellbinding journey into the frozen heart of darkness with this lyrical, riveting, and imaginative young adult novel.
Symone "Sym" Wates is obsessed with the Antarctic and the brave, romantic figure of Captain Oates from Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole. In fact, Oates is the secret confidant to whom she spills all her hopes and fears.
But Sym's uncle Victor is even more obsessed--and when he takes her on a dream trip into the bleak Antarctic wilderness, it turns into a nightmarish struggle for survival that will challenge everything she knows and loves.
Reviews (7)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Symone, 14, narrates McCaughrean's (Peter Pan in Scarlet) tale about the trip of a lifetime gone horribly wrong. Hearing-impaired and unpopular, Sym appreciates the attentions of "Uncle" Victor, her dead father's business partner and the family's seeming benefactor. Victor, an eccentric genius obsessed with proving the discredited Hollow Earth theories of John Symmes, has fostered in Sym a lifelong fascination with Antarctica. Indeed, Sym's only companion is an imaginary friend, Lawrence "Titus" Oates, who perished in 1912 during Captain Robert Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole. Sym is thrilled when Victor spirits her off for an impromptu trip to Paris, which morphs-incredibly-into a trek to Antarctica, as the two join a crowd of rich tourists for a guided look at "The Ice's" astounding landscape. Victor aligns with Manfred Bruch, a purported Norwegian filmmaker, and his son. Guests and guides alike become mysteriously ill, and the tour is cut short, but the plane intended to return the group to safety explodes. After Victor's "nice cup of tea" induces sleep in everyone else, the four abscond on Victor's mad quest for Symmes's Hole. The heroine's relentless self-deprecation, a necessary element of her unconditional acceptance of Victor, is nonetheless somewhat overplayed. But the ratcheting terror, thrilling double-crosses and gorgeously articulated star character-Antarctica itself-combine for a girl's adventure yarn of the first order. Ages 12-up. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
(High School) Shy fourteen-year-old Sym is, in her peers' assessment, a ""misfit weirdo."" She's not sex-obsessed, and she loves a long-dead polar explorer named Titus who lives in her head. From this premise McCaughrean builds a completely unexpected book-not just a quirky coming-of-age story, though it is that, but also a page-turning survival thriller; a love story; and not least a scintillatingly observed, unsentimental portrait of Antarctica. Sym and her uncle Victor (the eccentric family friend who has stood in for her father since the latter's death) join a polar expedition, but unlike the other tourists, Victor is there to fulfill his life's obsession: to find Symmes's Hole, the entrance to what he believes is our hollow planet, inside which are alternate worlds. He needs Sym as a sort of polar pioneer Eve to populate the Inner Spheres of the Earth. The story of Sym's escape both from Uncle Victor's insanity and from the hostile and utterly inhospitable Ice is riveting. What makes the book truly stand out is Sym's unique personality; the poignancy of her relationship with Titus; the slow revelation of the depth of Uncle Victor's mad malevolence; and, through it all, McCaughrean's inspired wordplay and powerful imagery: ""Here even the common cold germ is put to flight by the uncommon cold""; ""God sketched Antarctica, then erased most of it again, in the hope a better idea would strike Him."" (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Fourteen-year-old Symone's only friend is an imaginary incarnation of Captain Laurence Titus Oates, an explorer who accompanied Robert Scott on his failed expedition to the South Pole. Sym is passionate about the Antarctic and her infatuation is fed by Uncle Victor, an eccentric family friend who has cared for Sym and her mother since Sym's father's death. When Victor surprises Sym with a trip to the Ice, she has some doubts, especially when she discovers that her mother can't come. But her excitement overshadows her initial misgivings--until realizes that Uncle Victor has an obsession of his own that runs deeper than the glaciers and threatens her life. It's not always clear whether Titus' voice is imagined or if it's meant to be shy, bookish Sym's only link to the outside world, but McCaughrean's lyrical language actively engages the senses, plunging readers into a captivating landscape that challenges the boundaries of reality. Best suited to older, better readers despite the age of the protagonist, this imaginative, intellectually demanding novel offers plenty of action. --Jennifer Hubert Copyright 2006 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 7 Up-As with Not the End of the World (HarperTempest, 2005), McCaughrean weaves a tale of obsession and personal growth against the backdrop of nature's unrelenting power. Fourteen-year-old Sym Wates is fascinated with the Antarctic and the men who explored it, even to the point of creating an internal confidante in the form of Captain Lawrence "Titus" Oates, who was part of the doomed Scott expedition 90 years earlier. So when her "Uncle" Victor whisks the painfully shy, hearing-impaired teen away on a surprise trip to the South Pole, it seems like a dream come true. But Victor has his own agenda, seeking the legendary Symmes's Hole, portal to the interior of a hollow Earth. The lengths to which the madman pursues this quest provide the book with a dramatic drive and powerful revelations. Sym makes for an engaging (if occasionally melodramatic) narrator, although aspects of her character, such as her hearing loss, are not fully developed. An afterword on Scott's expedition in 1911 is included.-Christi Voth, Parker Library, CO (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Guardian Review
During two of the hottest days this summer, it was more than a pleasure to read this novel: it was the best possible air- conditioning, too. Reading Geraldine McCaughrean is like being on a spiral staircase. You move down and down and it gets darker and darker, but somehow you're travelling towards some kind of light. You surrender yourself to the writer, and you are in the best of hands. McCaughrean writes every sort of book and she seems to produce them in the way a rose bush produces flowers: effortlessly and beautifully and over and over again. There's something in her work for everyone. This book, like many modern teenage novels, is told in the first person. Sym's dad is dead, and she's out of step and out of sympathy with her contemporaries. They're all obsessed with make-up, boyfriends and magazine quizzes, but Sym is on another wavelength altogether. Sym's heart belongs to the glamorous and gallant Lawrence "Titus" Oates: the one who left the tent, saying he would be some time. Titus is not simply the object of Sym's affections. He's also a character in the book and interacts with our heroine throughout. He speaks, he moves, he exists, and so skilfully is he imagined that in every way but his corporeal presence, he's the true hero of the novel. Sym lives in a world of her own and we are there with her. It can be an uncomfortable place, but there's never a dull moment. So far, so romantic. Then there's Uncle Victor. He's going to go down in the annals of children's literature as a maniac of the most unpredictable kind. It's a very long way into the story before Sym realises his true colours. He's not a real uncle, but a business partner of Sym's late father, and it's he who arranges the trip to the South Pole courtesy of a company delightfully called Pengwings. For a while, it's all excitement, adventure, thrills and the ever- present and amazingly described landscape. We meet a motley collection of rich Antarctic tourists and there we are, in the unknown. Things then go pear-shaped in truly baroque fashion and, before long, Sym is fighting for her life. She wins through, naturally, but not until she's learned much about everything she'd previously taken for granted. She even finds a boyfriend of sorts during the trip, and, at the end, the possibility of true love. Who helps her through her ordeal? Why, who else but Titus Oates? There are many other elements in this novel, and the language is extraordinary. The narrative has elements of fairytale and legend. It's also a rip-roaring adventure yarn. McCaughrean can do funny and moving and quirky. The best thing of all, though, is her understanding of the kind of child who lives mostly in her own head. Oxford has given the novel a splendid cover, and with any luck it'll be read by everyone, whatever their age. No one's going to forget it in a hurry. Adele Geras's latest novel for young adults is Happy Ever After . To order The White Darkness for pounds 11.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 836 0875 or go to www.guardian.co.uk/ bookshop Caption: article-geras.1 This book, like many modern teenage novels, is told in the first person. Sym's dad is dead, and she's out of step and out of sympathy with her contemporaries. They're all obsessed with make-up, boyfriends and magazine quizzes, but Sym is on another wavelength altogether. Sym's heart belongs to the glamorous and gallant Lawrence "Titus" [Titus Oates]: the one who left the tent, saying he would be some time. Titus is not simply the object of Sym's affections. He's also a character in the book and interacts with our heroine throughout. He speaks, he moves, he exists, and so skilfully is he imagined that in every way but his corporeal presence, he's the true hero of the novel. Sym lives in a world of her own and we are there with her. It can be an uncomfortable place, but there's never a dull moment. - Adele Geras.
Kirkus Review
A teenager's coming of age undergoes particularly harsh annealing in this intense, inwardly focused survival tale. Eccentric but ever supportive, both before and after her father's slow death, Victor has been "Uncle" to shy, nearly deaf Sym since childhood. When she trustingly steals away with him to Antarctica, however, and finds herself roaring off into the howling wilderness in a stolen all-terrain vehicle, she gradually comes to learn that he has involved her in a mad effort to find a legendary entrance to an equally legendary underground world. As layers of deception peel away, Victor turns out to be a scary character indeed--outwardly brilliant and genial, but in truth an obsessed, treacherous, blithely murderous poisoner. Readers will find this a triply compelling tale: for its slow revelation of a deranged soul; for its young narrator, who turns out to be tougher than she or anyone else supposes; and for its wildly hostile setting, which quickly turns the secret expedition into a frantic struggle to survive. (author's note) (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
A lifelong love of Antarctica puts a sheltered 14-year-old in grave danger in this 2008 Printz Award winner. Symone's hearing disability and disinterest in boys alienate her from her peer group. Her only friend is Capt. Laurence "Titus" Oates, a long-dead victim of Robert Falcon Scott's 1912 expedition to the South Pole. She will need his expertise when her Uncle Victor invites her along on his own polar exploration. Cold Weather Appeal: Be sure to crank up the furnace. Between the freezing temperatures and the vast white landscape, frostbite is a real reading hazard. Why It Is for Us: Fans of Paul Theroux's The Mosquito Coast will recognize Uncle Victor's particular form of madness long before our heroine does. At the 2008 ALA Conference, Printz committee members sported buttons featuring an image of the real Captain Oates declaring "Titus is a hottie." The imaginary relationship between Symone and Titus is so very sweet that you may think so, too.-Angelina Benedetti (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.