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The House of the Scorpion (Paperback)
by Nancy Farmer
| Category:
Age 9-12, Children books, Story books, Adventure |
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Author: Nancy Farmer
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pub. in: April, 2004
ISBN: 0689852231
Pages: 400
Measurements: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BC00434
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0689852237
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- MSL Picks -
This story takes place in the future in the border of U.S and Mexico an area called Opium. the setting is very important because Opium is a field of poppy plants that is owned by a drug lord that has power over Azatlan (former Mexico) and U.S to break any law.
This book is mostly about a boy Matt (Matteo Alacran) who is a clone of a drug lord named Matteo Alacran. Matt grows between drugs,wars, deceptions,tricks and hate from "his own family" just because he is a clone . At the beginning it tells you how Matt was created and how he got to know the Alacrans. Mr. Alacran, El Patrons (Matteo Alacran) great grandson, and Mr. Alacrans two sons Benito and Steven,Tom which is Felicias son, Mr.Alacrans wife. They all hate Matt and made his life miserable just for being a clone. Matt had only three friends, the chief cook Celia, his bodyguard Tam Lin and Maria Mr.Mendoza daughter and sister of Emilia, all family friends. He was well taken care of until he found out the real reason for his creation and he escapes to a world that he doesn't know and specially the dangers out there. But even this doesn't promise him freedom because Matt is different in ways he doesn't even know. He returns with a dream to attempt to change the drug kingdom.
In my opinion this book is the best I have ever read. It has action,drama,a little of comedy,suspense,and a message of love and friendship. I like how it made me laugh, cry, and sometimes angry because of the way they treated people just for being different. I would recommend this book because us kids connect with Matt as he grows from a boy to a young men who wrestles with difficult issues and decisions and comes to understand that he has the power to make changes for good.
(Quoting from kids review, USA)
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Nancy Farmer has written three Newbery Honor books, including The House of the Scorpion; The Ear, the Eye and the Arm; and A Girl Named Disaster. Other books include Do You Know Me, The Warm Place, and three picture books for young children. She grew up on the Arizona-Mexico border in the landscape she evokes so strongly in this novel. She lives with her family in Menlo Park, California.
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From Publisher
MATTEO ALACRáN WAS NOT BORN; HE WAS HARVESTED.
His DNA came from El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium - a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. Matt's first cell split and divided inside a petri dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster - except for El Patrón. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself.
As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters, including El Patrón's power-hungry family, and he is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape is the only chance Matt has to survive. But escape from the Alacrán Estate is no guarantee of freedom, because Matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn't even suspect.
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Chapter 1: In the Beginning
In the beginning there were thirty-six of them, thirty-six droplets of life so tiny that Eduardo could see them only under a microscope. He studied them anxiously in the darkened room.
Water bubbled through tubes that snaked around the warm, humid walls. Air was sucked into growth chambers. A dull, red light shone on the faces of the workers as they watched their own arrays of little glass dishes. Each one contained a drop of life.
Eduardo moved his dishes, one after the other, under the lens of the microscope. The cells were perfect - or so it seemed. Each was furnished with all it needed to grow. So much knowledge was hidden in that tiny world! Even Eduardo, who understood the process very well, was awed. The cell already understood what color hair it was to have, how tall it would become, and even whether it preferred spinach to broccoli. It might even have a hazy desire for music or crossword puzzles. All that was hidden in the droplet.
Finally the round outlines quivered and lines appeared, dividing the cells in two. Eduardo sighed. It was going to be all right. He watched the samples grow, and then he carefully moved them to the incubator.
But it wasn't all right. Something about the food, the heat, the light was wrong, and the man didn't know what it was. Very quickly over half of them died. There were only fifteen now, and Eduardo felt a cold lump in his stomach. If he failed, he would be sent to the Farms, and then what would become of Anna and the children, and his father, who was so old?
"It's okay," said Lisa, so close by that Eduardo jumped. She was one of the senior technicians. She had worked for so many years in the dark, her face was chalk white and her blue veins were visible through her skin.
"How can it be okay?" Eduardo said.
"The cells were frozen over a hundred years ago. They can't be as healthy as samples taken yesterday."
"That long," the man marveled.
"But some of them should grow," Lisa said sternly.
So Eduardo began to worry again. And for a month everything went well. The day came when he implanted the tiny embryos in the brood cows. The cows were lined up, patiently waiting. They were fed by tubes, and their bodies were exercised by giant metal arms that grasped their legs and flexed them as though the cows were walking through an endless field. Now and then an animal moved its jaws in an attempt to chew cud.
Did they dream of dandelions? Eduardo wondered. Did they feel a phantom wind blowing tall grass against their legs? Their brains were filled with quiet joy from implants in their skulls. Were they aware of the children growing in their wombs?
Perhaps the cows hated what had been done to them, because they certainly rejected the embryos. One after another the infants, at this point no larger than minnows, died.
Until there was only one.
Eduardo slept badly at night. He cried out in his sleep, and Anna asked what was the matter. He couldn't tell her. He couldn't say that if this last embryo died, he would be stripped of his job. He would be sent to the Farms. And she, Anna, and their children and his father would be cast out to walk the hot, dusty roads.
But that one embryo grew until it was clearly a being with arms and legs and a sweet, dreaming face. Eduardo watched it through scanners. "You hold my life in your hands," he told the infant. As though it could hear, the infant flexed its tiny body in the womb until it was turned toward the man. And Eduardo felt an unreasoning stir of affection.
When the day came, Eduardo received the newborn into his hands as though it were his own child. His eyes blurred as he laid it in a crib and reached for the needle that would blunt its intelligence.
"Don't fix that one," said Lisa, hastily catching his arm. "It's a Matteo Alacrán. They're always left intact."
Have I done you a favor? thought Eduardo as he watched the baby turn its head toward the bustling nurses in their starched, white uniforms. Will you thank me for it later?
Copyright © 2002 by Nancy Farmer
Chapter 2: The Little House in the Poppy Fields
Matt stood in front of the door and spread his arms to keep Celia from leaving. The small, crowded living room was still blue with early morning light. The sun had not yet lifted above the hills marking the distant horizon.
"What's this?" the woman said. "You're a big boy now, almost six. You know I have to work." She picked him up to move him out of the way.
"Take me with you," begged Matt, grabbing her shirt and wadding it up in his hands.
"Stop that." Celia gently pried his fingers from the cloth. "You can't come, mi vida. You must stay hidden in the nest like a good little mouse. There're hawks out there that eat little mice."
"I'm not a mouse!" Matt yelled. He shrieked at the top of his voice in a way he knew was irritating. Even keeping Celia home long enough to deliver a tongue-lashing was worth it. He couldn't bear being left alone for another day.
Celia thrust him away. "¡Callate! Shut up! Do you want to make me deaf? You're just a little kid with cornmeal for brains!" Matt flopped sullenly into the big easy chair.
Celia immediately knelt down and put her arms around him. "Don't cry, mi vida. I love you more than anything in the world. I'll explain things to you when you're older." But she wouldn't. She had made the same promise before. Suddenly the fight went out of Matt. He was too small and weak to fight whatever drove Celia to abandon him each day.
"Will you bring me a present?" he said, wriggling away from her kiss.
"Of course! Always!" the woman cried.
So Matt allowed her to go, but he was angry at the same time. It was a funny kind of anger, for he felt like crying, too. The house was so lonely without Celia singing, banging pots, or talking about people he had never seen and never would see. Even when Celia was asleep - and she fell asleep easily after long hours cooking at the Big House - the rooms felt full of her warm presence.
When Matt was younger, it hadn't seemed to matter. He'd played with his toys and watched the television. He'd looked out the window where fields of white poppies stretched all the way to the shadowy hills. The whiteness hurt his eyes, and so he turned from them with relief to the cool darkness inside.
But lately Matt had begun to look at things more carefully. The poppy fields weren't completely deserted. Now and then he saw horses - he knew them from picture books - walking between the rows of white flowers. It was hard to tell who rode them in all that brightness, but it seemed the riders weren't adults, but children like him.
And with that discovery grew a desire to see them more closely.
Matt had watched children on television. He saw that they were seldom alone. They did things together, like building forts or kicking balls or fighting. Even fighting was interesting when it meant you had other people around. Matt never saw anyone except Celia and, once a month, the doctor. The doctor was a sour man and didn't like Matt at all.
Matt sighed. To do anything, he would have to go outdoors, which Celia said again and again was very dangerous. Besides, the doors and windows were locked.
Matt settled himself at a small wooden table to look at one of his books. Pedro el Conejo, said the cover. Matt could read - slightly - both English and Spanish. In fact, he and Celia mixed the two languages together, but it didn't matter. They understood each other.
Pedro el Conejo was a bad little rabbit who crawled into Señor MacGregor's garden to eat up his lettuces. Señor Mac-Gregor wanted to put Pedro into a pie, but Pedro, after many adventures, got away. It was a satisfying story.
Matt got up and wandered into the kitchen. It contained a small refrigerator and a microwave. The microwave had a sign reading PELIGRO!!! DANGER!!! and squares of yellow notepaper saying NO! NO! NO! NO! To be extra sure, Celia had wrapped a belt around the microwave door and secured it with a padlock. She lived in terror that Matt would find a way to open it while she was at work and "cook his little gizzards," as she put it.
Matt didn't know what gizzards were and he didn't want to find out. He edged around the dangerous machine to get to the fridge. That was definitely his territory. Celia filled it with treats every night. She cooked for the Big House, so there was always plenty of food. Matt helped himself to sushi, tamales, pakoras, blintzes - whatever the people in the Big House were eating. And there was always a large carton of milk and bottles of fruit juice.
He filled a bowl with food and went to Celia's room.
On one side was her large, saggy bed covered with crocheted pillows and stuffed animals. At the head was a huge crucifix and a picture of Our Lord Jesus with His heart pierced by five swords. Matt found the picture frightening. The crucifix was even worse, because it glowed in the dark. Matt kept his back to it, but he still liked Celia's room.
He sprawled over the pillows and pretended to feed the stuffed dog, the teddy bear, the rabbit (conejo, Matt corrected). For a while this was fun, but then a hollow feeling began to grow inside Matt. These weren't real animals. He could talk to them all he liked. They couldn't understand. In some way he couldn't put into words, they weren't even there.
Matt turned them all to the wall, to punish them for not being real, and went to his own room. It was much smaller, being half filled by his bed. The walls were covered with pictures Celia had torn out of magazines: movie stars, animals, babies - Matt wasn't thrilled by the babies, but Celia found them irresistible - flowers, news stories. There was one of acrobats standing on one another in a huge pyramid. SIXTY-FOUR! the caption said. A NEW RECORD AT THE LUNAR COLONY.
Matt had seen these particular words so often, he knew them by heart. Another picture showed a man holding a bullfrog between two slices of bread. RIBBIT ON RYE! the caption said. Matt did...
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Amazon.com (MSL quote), USA
<2008-03-05 00:00>
Fields of white opium poppies stretch away over the hills, and uniformed workers bend over the rows, harvesting the juice. This is the empire of Matteo Alacran, a feudal drug lord in the country of Opium, which lies between the United States and Aztlan, formerly Mexico. Field work, or any menial tasks, are done by "eejits," humans in whose brains computer chips have been installed to insure docility. Alacran, or El Patron, has lived 140 years with the help of transplants from a series of clones, a common practice among rich men in this world. The intelligence of clones is usually destroyed at birth, but Matt, the latest of Alacran's doubles, has been spared because he belongs to El Patron. He grows up in the family's mansion, alternately caged and despised as an animal and pampered and educated as El Patron's favorite. Gradually he realizes the fate that is in store for him, and with the help of Tam Lin, his bluff and kind Scottish bodyguard, he escapes to Aztlan. There he and other "lost children" are trapped in a more subtle kind of slavery before Matt can return to Opium to take his rightful place and transform his country.
Nancy Farmer, a two-time Newbery honoree, surpasses even her marvelous novel, The Ear, The Eye and the Arm in the breathless action and fascinating characters of The House of the Scorpion. Readers will be reminded of Orson Scott Card's Ender in Matt's persistence and courage in the face of a world that intends to use him for its own purposes, and of Louis Sachar's Holes in the camaraderie of imprisoned boys and the layers of meaning embedded in this irresistibly compelling story. (Ages 12 and older) - Patty Campbell -This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Publishers Weekly (MSL quote), USA
<2008-03-05 00:00>
Farmer's (A Girl Named Disaster; The Ear, the Eye and the Arm) novel may be futuristic, but it hits close to home, raising questions of what it means to be human, what is the value of life, and what are the responsibilities of a society. Readers will be hooked from the first page, in which a scientist brings to life one of 36 tiny cells, frozen more than 100 years ago. The result is the protagonist at the novel's center, Matt a clone of El Patron, a powerful drug lord, born Matteo Alacr n to a poor family in a small village in Mexico. El Patro n is ruler of Opium, a country that lies between the United States and Aztl n, formerly Mexico; its vast poppy fields are tended by eejits, human beings who attempted to flee Aztl n, programmed by a computer chip implanted in their brains. With smooth pacing that steadily gathers momentum, Farmer traces Matt's growing awareness of what being a clone of one of the most powerful and feared men on earth entails. Through the kindness of the only two adults who treat Matt like a human Celia, the cook and Matt's guardian in early childhood, and Tam Lin, El Patron's bodyguard Matt experiences firsthand the evils at work in Opium, and the corruptive power of greed ("When he was young, he made a choice, like a tree does when it decides to grow one way or the other... most of his branches are twisted," Tam Lin tells Matt). The author strikes a masterful balance between Matt's idealism and his intelligence. The novel's close may be rushed, and Tam Lin's fate may be confusing to readers, but Farmer grippingly demonstrates that there are no easy answers. The questions she raises will haunt readers long after the final page. Ages 11-14.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. |
A kid review (MSL quote), USA
<2008-03-05 00:00>
The House of the Scorpion was an enrapturing story of a clone boy named Matteo Alacr'an or Matt. He grew up on the poppy fields of Opium, with the "big House's" cheif cook Ceilia. He had a happy childhood until a few kids found him in the house at the edge of the poppy fields. He desperatly wanted to become friends with the kids so he broke one of the windows that was nailed shut and jumped out. In jumping out of the window he severly cut his feet and the other kids instictivly brought him to the "big house."
When they discovered he was a clone he was thrown into a back room and treated like an animal. When El Patr'on (the person he was a clone of) found out about how he had been treated he gifted him with his own body guard. Matt was taught to read, write, play the piano , and do anything he desired. (Matt was an unusual clone, unlike any other clone Matt's brain had not been destroyed.) Though he suffered greatly throughout his childhood and was gifted with many talents and people.
Matt was the nineth clone that was to keep El Patr'on alive. He eventually realized his death sentence and fought for his "unimportant life." Though many people hated him, there were many people who loved him.
Ceilia, had been like a mother to Matt and loved him greatly. When Matt was about fourteen El Patr'on began to die, again. She steadily fed Matt poisinouse herbs, not enough to kill him but enough to kill an old feble man. Eventually El Patr'on did die and his relatives wanted to get rid of Matt. Matt's life was in danger yet again, the only way out are the glowing scorpions in the closets, that only El Patr'on and Matt can touch.
His body guard, Tam Lin who also had cared for him, had taught him survival and sent him off into Aztlan (where he might be safe). Matt had to climb a gigantic mountain, escape immigrant catchers, and hide his identity all at once. In Aztlan Matt made it safely into Aztlan and was soon shipped off with a few other orphaned boys to a shrimp camp. Because of his spoiled chilhood MAtt often said things he should've kept to himself, which pushed many people to dislike him. He withstood torchurouse situations and finally escaped the shrimp farm, with his new found friends.
Matt and his friends were on a search to find their families and old friends. But, I can't tell you if they succeed or not, you just have to read the book to find out.
This book combines adventure with friendship and science fiction. The entire book is exciting and you won't want to put it down. I think this is one of Nancy Farmer's best books not that any of them are bad their all good.
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Wini (MSL quote), USA
<2008-03-05 00:00>
This book is about a boy named Matt, who is a clone. This book explains what his life is like. Matt finds out that he was a clone when he was playing with some other kids one day. Matt got glass pieces stuck to his foot and he was taken to the `big house' to get these glass pieces out of his foot. That was when Matt finds out that he was a clone. It was terrifying experience for him.
The central conflict is that Matt wants to lead a normal life but can't because he was a clone and everyone treats him like he was some sort of a monster.
The main characters are: Matt, Celia, El Patron, Maria, and Esperanza.
I think this is a great book that explains about life, friendship, and love. This is a very creative book. For example, the author puts Matt as a clone rather than a normal kid. Another example is, El Patron turns out to be evil when you really think that he is a good guy because he lets Matt live. Another example, when Tam Lin seems like a good person but he actually killed some school children. These facts are very shocking to believe when you really get into the book.
I think that this book doesn't bring the central conflict to satisfying end. This is because the central conflict was to make Matt be a normal boy. In the end, Matt has to rescue the eejits.
I thought the ending was very different than what I expected to happen. I think that's one of the reasons I like this book. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes science fiction.
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