Synopsis: When Sloe was tiny, her Papa disappeared and she and her mama went to live in a prison camp in the snowy north, in a time and place when there are no more wild animals. Mama’s crime: teaching science, and her dedication to the hope that the lost animal species can be reborn. To Sloe, Mama’s secret work is magic, as enchanting as Mama’s tales of a bright city across the ice where they will be free.Years later, Sloe is sent to a prison school, and Mama disappears. At 13, Sloe escapes, pursued by a mysterious man. With only hope to keep her going, Sloe sets out on a solitary 1000-mile journey. But she is not truly alone for Mama left Sloe a gift: the seeds of five missing species and the knowledge to bring them to life.This strange and beautiful book was borrowed from my Aunt and I am so happy to have read what it probably considered to be young teen fiction but has so much more depth, detail and almost prosaic parts. In the author's note, Ann Halam said that Siberia wasn't a place in this book, more so a state of mind and that is definitely how it felt. When I book is all in the first person for the same character, I am always worried I will grow to hate them and grow tired of them - more so if they are female! However, I grow to love Sloe and am careful for her, am scared for her and throughout her journey, really enjoyed seeing the immense character development that happens - which you would expect from a girl hardened by a 1000 mile journey across ice. I began to realise that she also wouldn't annoy me because Ann Halam did not create an obnoxious protagonist who thinks the world revolves around them, instead Sloe knows not to wallow in self pity as she knows it will only hold her back.Each scene had something different, something new but kept it realistic and kept the reader's prior emotions and opinions about the characters and events. Something about this book really made it special to me. Whether it was the charisma of the main character, or the heart-warming, heart-wrenching nature of the journey she had to undertake, it's definitely a book that will stay with me for a long while now that I have read it.It also has some dystopian elements to it too. In the author's note, it is mentioned that Halam wanted to portray her ideas about the future of Earth's wild animals due to things like global warming and how they might be preserved and kept with us, maybe or maybe not by the 'seed banks'. Although you might think it a depressing subject as a bleak 1000 mile journey across frozen wasteland could not possibly be made joyous, Ann Halam's writing style and voice somehow make it readable and enjoyable, rooting for Sloe.I have to mention though why not the 5/5 stars and it is only because, in some of the settings that Sloe found herself in, it wasn't fully transparent to me where she was in relation to where she had just been and how she got there - although this may be just me, it did confuse me a little and cause me to go back and re-read the previous page.I will also be reading a few other books by Ann Halam, as I was intrigued by the intros to them at the back of 'Siberia' such as 'Taylor Five': Taylor Walker seems like any ordinary 14-year-old. Ordinary—if you overlook the fact that she lives on the island of Borneo, on a primate reserve run by her parents, and knows how to survive in the jungle. Obviously, Tay isn’t just like everyone else. But she is like one other person. She’s exactly like one other person. Tay is a clone, one of only five in the world, and her clone mother is Pam Taylor, a brilliant scientist.
Ich werde Siberia abrechen, weil die Geschichte einfach nicht mein Fall ist. Fantasy gefällt mir normalerweise, aber über irgendwelche ausgestrobenen weißen Tierchen zu lesen erfreut mich nicht.Viel zu dem Buch kann ich nicht sagen, da ich mit dem Lesen noch nicht weit gekommen bin. Trotztdem werde ich es so gut wie möglich versuchen. Ich habe mir das deutsche Buch gekauft, das ein schwartzes Layout hat, auf dem vorne eine weiße Blume abbgebildet ist. Sie hat einen besonderen Wert im Buch. In Siberia wird aus der Ich Perspektive gesschrieben, was dem ganzen keinen Nachteil gibt. Der Schreibstiel ist auch flüssig und leicht zu lesen. Es wird in von Hauptperson erzählt, so das man den Eindruck hat, sie würde mit einem Sprechen. Es geht um sie (damals noch ein kleines Mädchen) und ihre Mutter. Sie werden aus der "Stadt" in eine Art Gefängnis gebracht, eine Stadt, in der man mit anderem Geld zahlt und in einer kleinen Hütte wohnt. Ihre Mutter ist eine Wissenschaftlerin, die etwas außergewöhnliches erfindet. Um die Spannung nicht zu nehmen, sage ich dazu nichts. Damals gibt es nur noch 2 Arten von Tieren, die "Ungeziefer" und die "Mutanten". (Falls ich das richtig verstanden habe) Aber es gibt keine mehr in der Stadt, weil die Menschen nicht mehr viel Wert auf Tiere legen. Auch ist durch die Umweltverschmutztung, eine zweite Eiszeit ausgebrochen und es ist immmer kalt und die Meere sind zugefroren. (Ich hoffe das dass richtig ist, denn in dem Buch ist soetwas nicht erklärt. Das muss einem selber klar werden) Mehr werde ich nicht dazu sagen, weil ich 1. nicht sehr weit gekommen bin und 2. die Geschichte sonst zu langweilig wird.
What do You think about Siberia (2007)?
While the tale and the structure of the tale is enthralling, especially in the way that this title relates to fairytales with the different animal helpers, parts of it are at the same time too predictable and too undefined to make a great story. Regardless, I think the telling of the story is well written and the character has a strong voice and is easy to get into despite being far from perfect. My objections are mostly with the main evil which is not really as mysterious as the author would like to make out and with the world building. There is a pretty clumsy scene in which some of the world, at least in its environmental plight, is delineated but what draws me to dystopias is usually the social commentary which here did not get fleshed out. The author gives no reason for the motivations of both the "good guys" and the "bad guys" which makes the background movements that construct the story mostly meaningless- an obvious set. Thus its difficult to pick out what Halam really wanted to get at in this book- definitely something about animals and environment, but despite the story happens to stumble upon the idea that neither of these exist in a vaccuum without human, now or in the future, this isn't addressed well.
—Erin Reilly-Sanders
I picked this book up from a charity shop, the synopsis sounded interesting and I thought it would be good to have on standby. To my amazement, by page 2 I was hooked! I didn't realise it was a young adult book, but in some ways it reminded me of Fuse, Delirium or Divergent. The difference for me, is that Siberia is almost believable; it is a possible future that could be closer than we think; it''s 21st century meets sci-fi meets World War 2....and I loved it. Being a short novel, I read it over 2 nights. Brilliant heroine and great scenery, a full 5/5 from me :-) A modern fairy tale which makes you feel a little bit magical and about 8 years old again.
—Danii
Quite a fascinating story, with a very different premise. At first it reads like something similar to The Endless Steppe - a favourite of mine, hence my attraction to this book - but then it's not just a straight forward "family exile to Siberia" story. Because this isn't the 40s, it's in a dystopian future and the crux of the matter isn't some war or the exile at all, really.Sometime in the past of this strange future, most wild mammals fell into a huge decline and "the government ordered that seedbanks should be made", DNA storehouses for all the diversity that was being lost. The idea was that when the climate again improved, the earth could be repopulated. Well, that was one idea. The other, secret idea was to push all wild mammals to extinction so that humans would not have to compete with them for the scant resources in this frozen world.Where Sloe comes into this, is her mother has one of these seedbanks. And when her mother is taken away while Sloe is at boarding school, it's up to Sloe to take care of the "Lindquists", one for each order of mammal (besides cetecea and pinnipeds, which were thought to be lost), and get them to safety. And there begins her huge adventure, where she ends up "creating" a half dozen different animals to help her. The fun part there is she doesn't know what they are, so you can only guess based on her descriptions, until she learns some names!
—Sally
