October snowstorms on the East Coast. Tsunamis in Japan. Katrina, Irene. Sometimes it feels like a lusty 19-year-old must be in charge. Well, in Meg Rosoff's (How I Live Now) wildly imaginative novel, that's exactly who's running the show. His name is Bob, and he landed the job of Earth's creator and keeper when his mother, Mona, won it in a poker game.
For those of you of faith, please hold your concerns for a moment. Adolescence is a pivotal time for exploring questions of religion, doubt and faith. This book allows teens to ask those questions from a safe distance and with a sense of humor. Besides, Bob has a responsible, experienced "assistant," Mr. B, and also "an odd penguiny sort of" pet called Eck to lend some compassion to the proceedings. Conflict A arises when Bob sees 21-year-old, Rubenesque Lucy. Conflict B comes when Mona wagers Eck's life in a losing hand of poker to Mr. Emoto Hed. Bob couldn't care less, except that Eck was not hers to wager. Hed's daughter, Estelle, however, is outraged and fights for the pet's life.
Fate always plays a key role in Rosoff's books, but here she refers to the biblical text to shape Bob's character. And Eck, faced with impending death, poses questions of mortality that could easily have come out of the mouths of modern teens. Perhaps most surprising of all (given where she began), Rosoff resolves these conflicts in ways that might restore one's faith in the planet's and humanity's future. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness