Robert O’Brien “Z for Zachariah”
From time to time I like to read children’s books, especially when they deal with my favorite genre: the world after a catastrophe that more or less wiped out humankind.
Robert O’Brien’s “Z for Zachariah” is, along with Jean Ure’s “Plague” and David Palmer’s “Emergence”, one of the classics of the “dystopian fiction for children” genre. Granted, I often don’t have much luck with the so-called “classics”, but in this case I like all three of those books a lot. I am not sure if they are really suitable for children, considering the grim subject matter, but this is another topic altogether.
The book is written from the perspective of 15-year-old Ann, who lives alone in an isolated valley after her family and everyone else has died in a war that lasted all of one week and involved copious amounts of atom bombs. The world outside her sheltered little valley is a devastated deathland and she has no way of finding out if any other people survived the catastrophe. One day a man in a radiation suit arrives and changes everything. Not necessarily for the better.
I loved the way the book was written in the form of diary entries. And I am quite impressed with the way O’Brien managed to immerse himself in the mind of a 15-year-old girl, I thought her voice was very realistic. Of course, what with the book being written ages ago, for today’s standards Ann seems painfully naive and her wish to believe in the inherent good in people almost costs her her life. But maybe that can also be attributed to a sheltered upbringing.
All in all a very good book and a worthy addition to my dystopian fiction collection.
