REVIEW for The Eleventh Plague

Thank you to the wonderful people at Scholastic Canada for sending me this book.

TITLE:          The Eleventh Plague

AUTHOR:     Jeff Hirsch

GENRE:       YA

RATING:      2.5 Stars

I was a little disappointed in this one. It starts out with Stephen roaming the country with his Dad and Grandpa, salvaging what they could, to survive, after a war, the plague and finally the Collapse. Suddenly they get to Settler's Landing, this almost-to-good-to-be true town where all the events that ensue turn the story into something a little too simplistic for me.

After living the life he did, with his mean old coot of a grandpa, I would have thought that Stephen would be more mature than he was. The prank that was played by Jenny and Stephen was silly and carried way to much of a bearing on the story, after all they went through. The author simply lost me here.

I just found that the families in the story reverted back to their old ways a little too easily. They let the "money" people run the show, and they still followed, just as before, still pushing for war. Basically, nothing changed "after the war" and no lessons were learned.