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Ship Breaker

by Paolo Bacigalupi

Ship Breaker Cover

ISBN13: 9780316056212
ISBN10: 0316056219
Condition: Standard
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Awards

2011 Michael L. Printz Award
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

In America's Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota — and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it's worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life....

In this powerful novel, award-winning author Paolo Bacigalupi delivers a thrilling, fast-paced adventure set in a vivid and raw, uncertain future.

Review:

"SF novelist Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl) makes a stellar YA debut with this futuristic tale of class imbalance on the Gulf Coast. Teenage Nailer scavenges ships with his crewmates, eking out a poverty-filled existence while avoiding dangers that range from giant 'city killer' hurricanes to his vicious, drug-addicted father. When a storm strands a beautiful shipping heiress on the beach (earning her the nickname 'Lucky Girl'), Nailer manages both to infuriate members of his camp (including his father) and to become embroiled in upper-class trade disputes that he barely comprehends. As Nailer and Lucky Girl escape toward the drowned ruins of New Orleans, they witness rampant class disparity on individual and international levels (tribes whose lands were flooded have taken to the seas as pirates, attacking multinational shipping firms). Bacigalupi's cast is ethnically and morally diverse, and the book's message never overshadows the storytelling, action-packed pacing, or intricate world-building. At its core, the novel is an exploration of Nailer's discovery of the nature of the world around him and his ability to transcend that world's expectations. Ages 12 — up." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"Exciting, poetic, and breathtaking." Sherman Alexie

Review:

"Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi." Booklist

Review:

"Although a cautionary environmental message is implicit...this is essentially a kids-on-the-lam tale with all the narrow escapes and untrustworthy alliances dear to the action crowd, and enough futuristic maritime gadgetry to lure sci-fi fans on board as well." Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Synopsis:

A Nebula and Hugo Award-nominated author delivers a fast-paced dystopian adventure that is sure to appeal to fans of Little Brother and The Hunger Games.
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About the Author

Paolo Bacigalupi is a rising star in the science fiction community. The author of Pump Six and Other Stories and The Windup Girl, he is both a Nebula and Hugo Award nominee, and the winner of the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best science fiction short story and two Locus Awards for best collection and best novelette. Paolo lives in western Colorado with his wife and son. Ship Breaker is his first novel for young adults.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 4 comments:
Serina, January 19, 2011 (view all comments by Serina)
A fast pace adventure / chase novel set in a brutal future where gangs of kids risk their lives stripping precious scrap metal from beached tanker ships. The book centers on a teenage boy and the "posh" girl he rescues from a wrecked ship, but its appeal is much wider than young adult. Waiting to read the next in the series and will also read The Windup Girl - which is set in the same world.
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Susan Benson, November 7, 2010 (view all comments by Susan Benson)
Global Warming Gone Feral
Picture a future America destroyed by climate change, polar meltdown, and greed for natural resources: a place inhabited by powerfully rich swanks and insufferably poor masses. The swanks, who band together in clans, hold the power, while the underprivileged masses, who labor slavishly for the swanks, band into crews. To belong to a crew means that someone’s got your back, that there is an ally in a world of fear and violence. This is Nailer’s world–the world of a ship breaker. Each day Nailer, a small framed teenager, and his light crew enter grounded tankers to scavenge metal, wire, and items of reusable value. With his small, compact frame, Nailer crawls though the ship’s ducts, stripping wire for the crew owner, Bapi. Scarred across his face Nailer wears Bapi’s work tattoo. Nailer’s only relative is his hardened psychopathic father, Richard Lopez, a drug sliding, mean, brutally strong, murderer. Nailer knows it is only a matter of time before his vengeful father kills him.
When a city killer, the name for a regularly occurring hurricane, rips apart the coastline, Nailer and fellow crew, Pima, find on a nearby island a shipwrecked swank clipper. They are momentarily optimistic over the big scavenge until they discover a young woman, a swank, Nita, still alive on the clipper. While they are deciding what to do about Nita, Richard Lopez shows up with his own crew of hard edged men and women. Blue Eyes, a woman with a long scar down the side of her body wants to sell Nita’s organs to the Harvesters of the Life Cult. While his father’s crew sleeps off a drunken stupor, Nailer tries to escape the watchful guard of Blue Eyes, but botches the attempt. Just as Blue Eyes is about to cut Nailer with a machete, Sadna, Pima’s mother diverts Blue Eyes’s attention. Nailer escapes, but not without the stain of blood on this hands. Now, Nailer and Nita, with the help of Tool, a halfman, must find their way to Orleans so that Nailer can hide from his father’s wrath and Nita can find her people.
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Sean Concannon, August 31, 2010 (view all comments by Sean Concannon)
Ship Breaker is set in the same dystopian, global warming-wracked world as Bacigalupi's debut, The Windup Girl, but this one is for the YA reading level. Bacigalupi distills a raft of predictions for future technology and expertly works them into a grand adventure. Appropriately for a YA novel, the story rolls back around to where it began, with a thrilling battle and a satisfying conclusion. I can't wait to read his next book.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780316056212
Author:
Bacigalupi, Paolo
Publisher:
Little Brown and Company
Subject:
Science fiction
Subject:
Conduct of life
Subject:
Nature & the Natural World - Environment
Subject:
Fantasy & Magic
Subject:
Children s-Environmental Fiction
Publication Date:
20100531
Binding:
Hardcover
Language:
English
Pages:
326
Dimensions:
8.30x5.60x1.20 in. .95 lbs.
Age Level:
12-22
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Related Subjects


Children's » Awards » Michael L. Printz Award Winners
Children's » Science Fiction and Fantasy » General
Children's » Science and Nature » Environment
Children's » Science and Nature » Environmental Fiction
Fiction and Poetry » Science Fiction and Fantasy » A to Z
Languages » Foreign Languages » Spanish » Children's » Science Fiction and Fantasy » Science Fiction

Ship Breaker Used Hardcover
0 stars - 0 reviews
$9.95 In Stock
Product details 326 pages Little Brown and Company - English 9780316056212 Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "SF novelist Bacigalupi (The Windup Girl) makes a stellar YA debut with this futuristic tale of class imbalance on the Gulf Coast. Teenage Nailer scavenges ships with his crewmates, eking out a poverty-filled existence while avoiding dangers that range from giant 'city killer' hurricanes to his vicious, drug-addicted father. When a storm strands a beautiful shipping heiress on the beach (earning her the nickname 'Lucky Girl'), Nailer manages both to infuriate members of his camp (including his father) and to become embroiled in upper-class trade disputes that he barely comprehends. As Nailer and Lucky Girl escape toward the drowned ruins of New Orleans, they witness rampant class disparity on individual and international levels (tribes whose lands were flooded have taken to the seas as pirates, attacking multinational shipping firms). Bacigalupi's cast is ethnically and morally diverse, and the book's message never overshadows the storytelling, action-packed pacing, or intricate world-building. At its core, the novel is an exploration of Nailer's discovery of the nature of the world around him and his ability to transcend that world's expectations. Ages 12 — up." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review" by , "Exciting, poetic, and breathtaking."
"Review" by , "Vivid, brutal, and thematically rich, this captivating title is sure to win teen fans for the award-winning Bacigalupi."
"Review" by , "Although a cautionary environmental message is implicit...this is essentially a kids-on-the-lam tale with all the narrow escapes and untrustworthy alliances dear to the action crowd, and enough futuristic maritime gadgetry to lure sci-fi fans on board as well."
"Synopsis" by , A Nebula and Hugo Award-nominated author delivers a fast-paced dystopian adventure that is sure to appeal to fans of Little Brother and The Hunger Games.
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