Elsewhere by Garielle Zevin

Year Published: 2005
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN:9780374320911
Pages: 275
Media Type: Book
Classification: Fiction
Interest Level: 9-12
Reading Level: 5
Subjects: Future life, Death

Reader's Annotation: After 15-year-old Liz Hall is hit by a taxi and killed, she finds herself in a place that is both like and unlike Earth, where she must adjust to her new status and figure out how to live.

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Liz Hall dies when she gets run-over by a taxi. She goes to this new place called Elsewhere. She watches her family in friends from Elsewhere and gets really depressed about not being able to experience life. Things change after she gets to know her grandmother. She starts to enjoy her job, her friends and even falls in love. In Elsewhere, everyone ages backwards until they are released back to earth to be born again.

I think that Zevin writes a more upbeat opposite of the book, Giver by Lois Lowry. Elsewhere is a place where everything is perfect, everyone gets an assignment but they age backwards. It even gives a twist of the process of the the Release. Instead of dying, she makes it as a process of living and new beginnings.

Reviews and Awards: School Library Journal

javascript:void(0)