An Ember in the Ashes -- Informational Texts

An Ember in the Ashes 

as Informational Text (compare/contrast style)

Similarities to Ancient Greek Culture
An Ember in the Ashes:	Ancient Greek Culture:
Martial Culture	Spartan Warrior Culture
Scholars: emphasis on learning, arts, books	Athenian culture emphases on the arts
Class system: slaves and freemen and women, soldier caste, spiritual augurs as ultimate authority	Class system: the rich, slaves vs. freemen, ruling class of nobles, spiritual class as ultimate authority
Children are selected to be Martials at a young age, and are honed though years of training and trials.	Children become Spartan warriors at a young age, through a series of trials and training.
Young Martials have to fend for themselves in the wild to prove themselves.	Young Spartans have to prove themselves by surviving the wild.
Low class women are subjugated by sexual and physical violence.	Low class women are subjugated by sexual and physical violence.
Leaders come from the Martial class.	Leaders come from the Warrior class.
Women can be strong leaders.	“only Spartan women can give birth to Spartan men”
Price for failure or disloyalty = death	“come back with your shield or on it”
Dissimilarities
Presence of a Resistance Movement	Separate City-States mean Athens and Sparta govern themselves separately, so no need for a resistance.
One class rules another with violence and oppression	Freedom from outside rule and oppression, or at least the ability to fight against would-be invaders (Persia)
Silver Masks as hallmark of Martial Class	Shields and armor as hallmark of warrior class.
Scholarship is stamped out, not valued.	Scholarship is not valued in Sparta, but Athens embraces it, so there is a safe haven for learning.

An Ember in the Ashes -- Sabaa Tahir

Argument from the first 40 pages:

Here's the thing: I love fantasy writing. I love Middle Earth and Hogwarts and Westeros -- I love losing myself in alternate, kind-of-similar-to-my-world-but-not-quite kinds of settings. I can get behind a fantasy-world-premise and follow it obligingly, but my argument at this point in Ember is that I am wandering around this novel. I'm stumbling through the first chapters, trying to suspend disbelief and go with the Scholar class, Marshalls law, etc, but I'm a bit lost and confused as to where I am and what's going on. Thus far, the world has not been explained (although the back cover tells me it is "Rome-esque"), and the narration is jumping back and forth between two very different voices in the midst of two very different stories. The narration hasn't given me a minute to look around and get my bearings; I haven't had a bird's eye view of this world or any information about what its basic premises are. It's a bit much to expect from the reader -- to wait 40 pages to get hooked. I prefer to tour Middle Earth for a minute before setting out on my quest...I like to know what Panem is before I begin to fight the Power...I just like to get a little acquainted with my fantasy world before trying to survive in it, you know?

* note: I am totally hooked on this novel, of course, and I'm sure the narrators will flesh out Ember's world as I read.  I just want to remember that this is probably not a good YA for young high school readers; I'd recommend it for 11th and 12th graders. It requires a great deal of patience and reading-while-confused to get hooked into the story.  

Final, Existential Thoughts: The Fault in Our Stars -- John Green

This:

It was unbearable. The whole thing. Every second worse than the last. I just kept thinking about calling him, wondering what would happen, if anyone would answer. In the last weeks, we'd been reduced to spending our time together in recollection, but that was not nothing: The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they'd been hours before. 
-- The Fault in Our Stars (Hazel's reflection after Augustus' death; italics mine)


This passage struck me as incredibly and devastatingly true. (Devastatingly? Possible-made-up word alert.) When we experience the loss of someone, whether to death or the end of a relationship, we lose the power of shared memory. And shared memory is, itself, a validation of individual life, because someone else is remembering us, too. We have a co-rememberer-- one who witnesses our life and reminds us of its significance.

The idea is so powerful. The symbolism of memory and immortality are so rich in this passage.