Type: Book Review
Title: I am Legend
Author: Richard Matheson
Publisher: Orb Books (3rd Edition)
ASIN: B00E299RE0
Year: 1997
Genre: Zombies, Sci-Fi
Reader's Annotation: Welcome to the post-apocalyptic world of Earth, where disease, war, or natural disaster has wiped out the human race. A few people live, except there are zombies that live among us. Grab your trustiest weapon and follow me on this great reading adventure all about Zombies.
BookTalk Ideas: Ideas about being the only survivor in a world filled with zombies that want to kill you. Older adult content applicable to older teens and adults.
Summary: This novel is about Dr. Richard Neville has survived the wiping out of a disease that has turned humans into zombies. They are technically zombie vampires that cannot be in the sunlight. Richard kills the zombies during the day, and at night he gets drunk and hides in his home. This is when the zombies come out, so he must hide.
Matheson provides the reader with an inside look into the life of a lonely man, someone who hast lost his wife and kids to the disease. This is a great novel for older teenagers and adults who are looking for a good zombie book with some violence, but with some psychological mind games thrown in.
Critical Evaluation: This novel is very long. You get the sense of the vast amount of time that Dr. Richard Neville spent alone, and how difficult it must have been to keep surviving in this way.
Challenge Issues:
- These books have too much violence, and leave the reader thinking about violence and harm to others.
- I know it's popular, but it needs to controlled.
- Be familiar with the themes in the material and how they relate to young adults today.
- Stay calm and remember to not be personally offended by their comments or concerns.
- Libraries provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
- Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
- LISTEN to what they have to say and reiterate our freedom to read and be without censorship.
- All material for young adults are under the review of the branch manager and even further up, the Library Director and even City Council members.
