Kids in grades 3 – 7 may be a little young for the Mockingjay or Maze Runner books, but the Sky Jumpers series offers a post-apocalyptic world of adventure and young heroes that’s appropriate for their reading skills and maturity level.
Sky Jumpers: Book 1 (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at $6.99)
“Eddleman brings a strong sense of atmosphere to this post-apocalyptic coming-of-age piece, and the underlying message—that it’s possible to contribute in unexpected ways—is a positive one.” —Publishers Weekly
Twelve-year-old Hope lives in White Rock, a town of inventors struggling to recover from the green bombs of World War III. But Hope is terrible at inventing and would much rather sneak off to cliff dive into the Bomb’s Breath—the deadly band of compressed air that covers the crater left by the bombs—than fail at yet another invention. When bandits discover that White Rock has priceless antibiotics, they invade. With a two-day deadline to finish making this year’s batch and no ingredients to make more, the town is left to choose whether to hand over the medicine and die from the disease that’s run rampant since the bombs, or die fighting the bandits now. Help lies in a neighboring town, but the bandits count everyone fourteen and older each hour. Hope and her friends Aaren and Brock might be the only ones who can escape to make the dangerous trek through the Bomb’s Breath and over the snow-covered mountain. For once, inventing isn’t the answer, but the daring and recklessness that usually get Hope into trouble might just save them all.
A Texas Library Association’s Bluebonnet Award 2015-2016 Master List Selection
Sky Jumpers Book 2: The Forbidden Flats (5/5 stars, currently priced at $6.99)
Escape one danger. Jump into another. . . .
Twelve-year-old Hope has always felt a little different from everyone else who lives in White Rock. She tries hard, but she doesn’t always think before she acts. She takes big risks. Sometimes her risks pay off, but sometimes they fail. Sometimes she fails.
Hope knows that the most dangerous thing about living in White Rock is that it’s so close to the deadly Bomb’s Breath—the invisible, fifteen-foot-thick band of compressed air that’s hovered over the earth since the Green Bombs of World War III. The citizens of White Rock live in fear of the Bomb’s Breath. Only Hope has figured out a way to go through it—and lived to tell the tale.
But when a massive tremor rips across the earth, the Bomb’s Breath begins to lower over White Rock. It’s up to Hope and her friends Brock and Aaren to make the dangerous journey far from home, across the bandit-ridden Forbidden Flats to the wilds of the Rocky Mountains, and obtain the one thing that may be able to stop it—before the Bomb’s Breath sinks too far and destroys them all. This time, Hope can’t fail.
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