Alone on Earth, a young girl searches for a new beginning
Nita is a child of the Institute. Ever since she can remember, she has roamed its sterile halls, living out her youth in the care of a fur-covered guardian from another world. The Institute’s computers give her everything she could want—except another human to share her life with. Long ago there were people at the Institute, but something happened that wiped them out. As she matures, Nita slowly realizes that she may be the only human being left on Earth—and that the fate of humanity could well lie with her.
Beyond a door marked Authorized Personnel Only is the “cold room,” a laboratory that may hold the key to Nita’s past—and her future. This is where her guardian found her, and it is to this place that Nita must return if she is to learn the secret of the Institute and what has happened to the rest of her kind.
From Publishers Weekly
On Nita's 15th birthday, her alien guardian Llipel reveals the story of her birth. Llipel and her companion, Llare, landed on Earth and discovered the Institute, a place founded before the last series of wars had killed off the human population. Llipel stumbled into a storeroom, full of thousands of fertilized human-egg cells. A careless word, as interpreted by the computer that maintained the storeroom, started Nita's life. Llare made the same blunder and became guardian to a boy only a little older than Nita. She and Sven are the last humansexcept for the unbornin the world. Together they learn the horrible truth about their ancestors, a race of creatures that destroyed itself by war. Nita and Sven hold in their hands the power to reform humanity or to let it die. This finely crafted work never falters with false resolution; the children don't find any survivors, though they look, and they do not fall in love or react in ways inappropriate to their socialization. An honest and compelling examination of "What if. . . ?" Ages 12-up. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up This story of Nita, a girl growing up in an insulated environment where she gradually comes to realize that she might be the last person left on Earth, has conflict and suspense from the beginning. Despite the enclosed set ting, there is absorbing interaction be tween the curious child seeking more knowledge about her origin and her world and the furry alien who acts as her protective guardian. Llipel is well portrayed as an intriguing example of an extraterrestrial species. Nina's tur bulent feelings are vividly depicted; she longs for others of her kind but is strangely repulsed when she first learns from the computer the clinical details of human reproduction. She is also ex tremely puzzled by the changes in her body as she enters puberty, having no peers with whom to discuss or com pare. Then Llipel's mysterious alien companion, who remains concealed in the locked west wing, turns out to be raising another human, a boy. When he and Nita finally get together and find that they are in an embryological insti tute where they were both started as test-tube babies, the plot is propelled along at a faster pace. After a danger ous and courageous trip outside to try to find other survivors, the two teens find the answers they seek as well as a new optimism for the future of humani ty, supplying an appropriate conclusion to both the story and their moral self- questioning. Lyle Blake Smythers, Li brary of Congress, Washington, D.C. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Description:
Alone on Earth, a young girl searches for a new beginning
Nita is a child of the Institute. Ever since she can remember, she has roamed its sterile halls, living out her youth in the care of a fur-covered guardian from another world. The Institute’s computers give her everything she could want—except another human to share her life with. Long ago there were people at the Institute, but something happened that wiped them out. As she matures, Nita slowly realizes that she may be the only human being left on Earth—and that the fate of humanity could well lie with her.
Beyond a door marked Authorized Personnel Only is the “cold room,” a laboratory that may hold the key to Nita’s past—and her future. This is where her guardian found her, and it is to this place that Nita must return if she is to learn the secret of the Institute and what has happened to the rest of her kind.
From Publishers Weekly
On Nita's 15th birthday, her alien guardian Llipel reveals the story of her birth. Llipel and her companion, Llare, landed on Earth and discovered the Institute, a place founded before the last series of wars had killed off the human population. Llipel stumbled into a storeroom, full of thousands of fertilized human-egg cells. A careless word, as interpreted by the computer that maintained the storeroom, started Nita's life. Llare made the same blunder and became guardian to a boy only a little older than Nita. She and Sven are the last humansexcept for the unbornin the world. Together they learn the horrible truth about their ancestors, a race of creatures that destroyed itself by war. Nita and Sven hold in their hands the power to reform humanity or to let it die. This finely crafted work never falters with false resolution; the children don't find any survivors, though they look, and they do not fall in love or react in ways inappropriate to their socialization. An honest and compelling examination of "What if. . . ?" Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Grade 7 Up This story of Nita, a girl growing up in an insulated environment where she gradually comes to realize that she might be the last person left on Earth, has conflict and suspense from the beginning. Despite the enclosed set ting, there is absorbing interaction be tween the curious child seeking more knowledge about her origin and her world and the furry alien who acts as her protective guardian. Llipel is well portrayed as an intriguing example of an extraterrestrial species. Nina's tur bulent feelings are vividly depicted; she longs for others of her kind but is strangely repulsed when she first learns from the computer the clinical details of human reproduction. She is also ex tremely puzzled by the changes in her body as she enters puberty, having no peers with whom to discuss or com pare. Then Llipel's mysterious alien companion, who remains concealed in the locked west wing, turns out to be raising another human, a boy. When he and Nita finally get together and find that they are in an embryological insti tute where they were both started as test-tube babies, the plot is propelled along at a faster pace. After a danger ous and courageous trip outside to try to find other survivors, the two teens find the answers they seek as well as a new optimism for the future of humani ty, supplying an appropriate conclusion to both the story and their moral self- questioning. Lyle Blake Smythers, Li brary of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.