Overview
This modern-day Lord of the Flies is a haunting existential novel, both award-winning and and provocative. Now in paperback as part of the Atheneum Collection! ""Nothing matters."" ""From the moment you are born, you start to die."" ""The Earth is 4.6 billion years old. You'll live to be a maximum of one hundred. Life isn't worth the bother!"" So says Pierre Anthon when he decides there is no meaning to life, leaves his seventh-grade classroom, climbs a plum tree, and stays there. His friends and classmates cannot get him to come down, not even by pelting him with rocks. So to prove to him that there is a meaning to life, they set out to give up things of importance, challenging one another to make increasingly serious sacrifices. The pile is started with a lifetime's collection of Dungeons & Dragons books, a fishing rod, a pair of green sandals, a pet hamster--but then, as each demand becomes more extreme, events take a morbid twist. And what if, after all these sacrifices, the pile is still not meaningful enough to bring Pierre Anthon down?
Full Product Details
Author: Janne Teller ,
Martin Aitken
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Imprint: Simon & Schuster
Edition: Reprint ed.
Dimensions:
Width: 15.00cm
, Height: 1.50cm
, Length: 21.00cm
Weight: 0.222kg
ISBN: 9781442441163
ISBN 10: 144244116
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 20 March 2012
Recommended Age: From 12 years
Audience:
Young adult
,
Teenage / Young adult
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Awaiting stock
The supplier is currently out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out for you.
Reviews
The seventh graders of Taering School are much like any others, until Pierre Anthon has an existential crisis, climbs a tree and refuses to come back to school. The other students can't live their lives as usual with one of their classmates sitting in a tree, pelting them with unripe plums every morning and yelling, In a few years you'll be dead and forgotten and diddly-squat, nothing. Determined to prove to Pierre Anthon that life has plenty of meaning, the students embark on a dire quest. Over the course of many months, each student is required to give up something full of meaning, something chosen by the previous sacrificing student. The sacrificial items start small--a favorite pair of shoes, a fishing pole--but become more and more dreadful as the pile of meaning grows. Quietly and without fanfare, the students' adventure develops into one that rivals Lord of the Flies for horror. The matter-of-fact, ruthlessly logical amorality of these teens is chilling. Gorgeously lyrical,
Author Information
Janne Teller was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has written several award-winning novels that have been translated into a number of languages. Nothing is the winner of the prestigious Best Children's Book Award from the Danish Cultural Ministry and is also a Printz Award Honor Book in the United States. Janne lives in New York City and Denmark. Martin Aitken has a doctorate in linguistics and has translated hundreds of articles, poems, and novels. Born in England, he lives in Copenhagen, Denmark.
