- US Edition
MARTians
An extraordinarily imaginative and quirky new YA novel by Morris Award-winner Blythe Woolston.
MARTians is a book about economics, the bats of happiness, and ostriches.
Zoë Zindlemann graduated early. It wasn’t her idea. But then, Zoë doesn’t have many ideas. She’s a good girl who knows what she’s supposed to know and does what she’s supposed to do. She’s exactly the kind of girl AllMART needs to sell canned octopus and dehydrated celery in a shop-or-be-shopped world.
Zoë is destined to belong to AllMART; she will become trainee Zero, professional welcome mat—unless Mort can give her another choice. He’s been working for AllMART long enough to know what’s up, and it isn’t good. Mort wants Zoë to join his mission to save the weak and powerless. Zoë isn’t sold on that idea because, while neighborhoods burn and surveillance drones hum overhead, she is starting to have some ideas of her own. . . .
Rights details
North America: Candlewick (Spring 2016)
Good news
Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Books of 2015
Chosen by prestigious Kirkus Reviews as one of its best books of the year for YA readers
Chicago Public Library Best Teen Books of 2015
A Best YA novel for Chicago Public Library in its 2015 round-up.
Publishers Weekly Best Books 2015
MARTians is one of PW’s 18 Best Books of 2015 in the YA category.
Starred Review in Kirkus
“A gorgeous and gut-wrenchingly familiar depiction of the entropic fragmentation of society.”
Starred Review in Booklist
“Woolston, author of the Morris Award-winning The Freak Observer, does a superb job creating a world that is part Kafka and part Orwell….both haunting and unforgettable.”
Starred Review in Publishers Weekly
“Woolston nods to Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles as she envisions a bleak, near-future suburban wasteland of empty housing developments and thriving big box stores….Will set imaginations spinning.