Plot Summary: Matt Alacrán is one out of many clones harvested for the purpose of supplying organs and body parts to the 146-year-old drug lord, El Patrón, in the borderlands that lie between the United States and what was once called Mexico (now Aztlan). Raised in isolation by his caretaker, Celia, in a small house surrounded by opium fields, Matt is wholly unaware of his role on the opium plantation, until he is discovered by El Patrón’s family, and taken into their home to be well educated and cared for. As Matt grows older, he learns about the slaves known as “eejits” who tend to the fields and act is brain dead servants to El Patrón, which troubles Matt, but only the knowledge of his own fate forces him to escape the plantation. When he is brought into an orphanage that serves as a harvesting plant for plankton, “the eighth wonder of the world,” which is ground up into hamburgers and hotdogs, he is out casted as “the aristocrat” for his intelligence, and soon makes friends and enemies there. After another daring escape, and a few heroic rescues, Matt returns to the land of Opium, to make some serious changes.
Critical Evaluation:
Nancy[EW3]
Farmer’s use of character development and imaginative setting help fuel a wondrous
dystopian world that is both science fiction, and yet totally plausible. The
dystopian world of cloning humans for body parts, and placing computer chips in
the brains of humans to make them work themselves to death, raises serious
questions of morality through the eyes of the coming-of-age Matt Alacrán.
Farmer is a master of characterization, as we see through Matt’s development
from a curiously shy boy kept in isolation, save for his adoring and loving
caretaker, to his reaching out to make friends with the children outside his
window, to being identified as a clone and imprisoned like a hamster in
sawdust, to being taken under the drug lord’s wing and raised in an
aristocratic household full of books and music. Matt is able to judge good from
evil in the actions of others, but his closeness to El Patrón makes it hard to
see evil in him at first. Of all the clones in the world, Matt is an exception,
because he didn’t receive the injection that numbs the brain of others. He
faces questions of existence and identity, as he is labeled a clone, but feels
completely human—full of ideas, and emotions and morality. In other words, Matt
faces all the challenges that any coming-of-age boy would face, but with the
added dimension of being a clone, which obviously complicates things a bit.
Reader’s Annotation:
What[EW4] if you
found out that your whole life was a lie? Matt Alacrán faced such a dilemma
when he found out that he was a clone of a powerful opium drug lord, El Patrón.
While Matt is smart and good-natured, all the other clones in the world have
been made dumb and harvested for body parts. How can Matt turn this bleak
futuristic world into a morally just one?
Author Information:
Gale’s Contemporary Authors Online states that the “Award-winning novelist
Nancy Farmer is the author of juvenile novels and picture books that
demonstrate her talent as a storyteller and her interest in African culture.
The seventeen years Farmer spent in Africa proved to be critical to her writing
career. "The character, viewpoint and zany sense of humor of the people I
met there have had a major effect on my writing," she commented
to CA. Many reviewers have applauded her work for her
characterizations, humor, and depiction of locale. A sure measure of Farmer's
success is that The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm and A Girl Named
Disaster were both named Newbery Honor books and have been translated into
several languages.
Farmer grew up during the 1940s and 1950s in Yuma, Arizona,
a town close to the U.S.-Mexican border where she lived in the hotel her father
managed. Although her school friends were not allowed to visit her in the rough
neighborhood where the hotel was located, "life at the hotel was a
wonderful preparation for writing," Farmer remembered in the St.
James Guide to Young Adult Writers.”
Genre: Science
Fiction
Subjects: Cloning, drug lords, future dystopian societies, family
Curriculum Ties:
Ethics, Cloning, Illegal Drugs
Booktalking Ideas:
Show a clip from The Wizard of Oz scene in the poppy fields and introduce
questions about opium and segue into a description of the setting of the book.
Conduct a puppet show, with duplicate stuffed animals to
start a discussion on cloning, and then broaden the question to include human
cloning and the ethics of such an idea.
Reading
Level/Interest Age: 13+
Challenge Issues/Defense: Due to depictions of child abuse and inhumane cloning, this material may be challenged. IIf so, refer to:
1. The San Francisco Public Library Collection Development Policy, Selection Criteria, and Teen Collection documents.
2. The California Department of Education District Selection Policies, Reading Lists, and Resources for Recommended Literature: Pre-K-12.
4. Mixed book reviews from School Library Journal, Kirkus, and Publisher’s Weekly.
5. If necessary, The San Francisco Public Library’s Request for Reconsideration of Library Materials Form.
Reason for Selection: This is a National Book Award Winner For Young People's Literature, and both a Printz and Newbury Honor title.
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