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Justina Ireland: Dread Nation
Mar. 12th, 2019 08:30 amJustina Ireland’s Dread Nation may be labeled as young adult fiction, but this is no light and easy read. IT’s just after the Civil War in America, and the dead have begun to rise. The shamblers are variously blamed on Emancipation, the wrath of God, or a strange new infectious agent. In America, black and indigenous people have been designated as shock troops, and from the age of 12, young girls and boys of colour are taught how to fight zombies and keep the white folks of America safe.
Dread Nation is the story of one such girl, mixed race Jane McKeene, daughter of a white southern woman of means to an unspecified black man, certainly not her absent husband. She’s being taught to be an Attendant - a lady’s bodyguard - at one of the best schools for Negro girls, but Jane is not exactly a devoted scholar or dutiful pupil, though she does excel at marksmanship and hand to hand combat.
In the course of her somewhat unapproved extracurricular activities, Jane, her ‘bad boy’ friend Jackson, and her fellow student, Katherine, a black girl light enough to easily pass, discover some nefarious plots, of course, and are sent off to languish in the coils of one of them - Summerland, a western colony patrolled day and night by black and indigenous folk kidnapped into service to keep the community safe for white settlers.
But even Summerland hides dangers and secrets still unknown to Jane and Katherine. As the situation grows ever worse Jane needs al her intelligence, ingenuity, and battle skills to survive.
First in a series.
Dread Nation is the story of one such girl, mixed race Jane McKeene, daughter of a white southern woman of means to an unspecified black man, certainly not her absent husband. She’s being taught to be an Attendant - a lady’s bodyguard - at one of the best schools for Negro girls, but Jane is not exactly a devoted scholar or dutiful pupil, though she does excel at marksmanship and hand to hand combat.
In the course of her somewhat unapproved extracurricular activities, Jane, her ‘bad boy’ friend Jackson, and her fellow student, Katherine, a black girl light enough to easily pass, discover some nefarious plots, of course, and are sent off to languish in the coils of one of them - Summerland, a western colony patrolled day and night by black and indigenous folk kidnapped into service to keep the community safe for white settlers.
But even Summerland hides dangers and secrets still unknown to Jane and Katherine. As the situation grows ever worse Jane needs al her intelligence, ingenuity, and battle skills to survive.
First in a series.
