Everything old is new again in a new book (from Scholastic) by the married team of Patricia and Frederick McKissack.
The book, The Clone Codes, is set in 2170. There’s peace and prosperity on planet Earth. But the cyborgs and clones that populate the planet are little more than slaves. And yet, there’s an underground movement afoot to free those cyborgs and clones, and the mother of a 13-year-old girl named Leanna is part of it.
The book is science fictional, but it draws on elements and individuals from American history — elements such as the Fugitive Slave Act, the Thirteenth Amendment, the abolitionist movement, and Plessy v. Ferguson and individuals such as Benjamin Franklin, Sojourner Truth, Justice John Marshall Harlan, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Which makes The Clone Codes a futuristic lesson in America’s past, designed for readers ages 9-12.
Something brand-new: The McKissacks have been up to some “cloning” themselves: The Clone Codes marks the writing debut of their son John, a mechanical engineer living in Memphis.
