By Clare B. Dunkle. New York: Atheneum, 2008.
Readers have written me to ask questions about this book. Here are some of those questions and their answers. If you read these and think of further questions, please go to the Contact the Author page to send me an email.
WARNING: If you have not read the book, please DO NOT read this page. The questions won't interest you, and they will ruin some of the book's best surprises.
WHY DID YOU MAKE CHIP A GERMAN SHEPHERD? DO
YOU OWN A GERMAN SHEPHERD, OR IS IT JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE BRAINY
DOGS?
WILL THERE BE A SEQUEL? I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS
NEXT.
I DON'T UNDERSTAND. ARE CASSIE AND THE OTHER
KIDS CLONES?
YOUR POLITICS ARE SHOWING. YOU'RE TRYING
TO SCARE US INTO THINKING THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS BLOWN THE SWINE
FLU OUT OF PROPORTION. THAT'S WHERE YOU GOT THE IDEA FOR THE
PRESIDENT'S EPIDEMIC.
IS THERE SOME SYMBOLIC SIGNIFICANCE TO MARTIN'S
LAST NAME, GLASS? BECAUSE OF THE DOMES, OR LIVING IN GLASS HOUSES,
OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT?
HOW LONG AGO DID PEOPLE MOVE INTO THE DOMES?
When I was a little girl, my family owned a German shepherd named Brit. My parents were very busy and disorganized, so Brit didn't have much of a life: she ate, slept, and barked at the mailman. The fact of the matter is that she was lonely. We lived in a neighborhood with only a few other children in it, and I was very lonely too. So one summer when I was about nine, I found a book in my mother's library on obedience training and got the bright idea to train Brit. It opened up a new world for both of us.
No one had taught Brit even basic commands, and she had never been properly socialized. When I put a leash on her, she plunged around like a charging bull. But I had great faith in my dog-training book, and Brit had an unbelievably quick mind. Within weeks, she had learned everything the book could teach her, and we were inventing new tricks for her to learn. By that time, Brit was my best friend.
We played hide-and-seek. We played soccer. Because I wanted a horse, I taught Brit to work at the end of an improvised "long rein," and she walked, trotted, galloped, or jumped small jumps on command. We played foot-races, and the speed that dog displayed as she ran around the "track" I had marked out in our back yard was amazing to see. She would wait with me at the starting line, muscles twitching, until I yelled, "Go!" Then she absolutely flew—and I held the end of her leash and flew right along with her, my feet touching the ground once every two yards. What a dog she was! I lost her far too soon.
Like Martin, I have known the unbelievable burst of confidence that comes from having a big, smart, beautiful German shepherd put complete trust and faith in me as only a loyal German shepherd can. Every kid should experience that. It puts you on top of the world.
Yes—because my editor wanted to know what happened next too! The Wall Have Eyes will come out in August 2009, and it will start the second the first book ends.
No. A clone is a perfect copy of a living creature: its identical twin. Cassie, Martin, and the other children are not identical. The product lines share certain common traits that make them seem like a family: Martin, for instance, shares with Theo, his Prototype, a dislike of sitting in school, a certain plain way of speaking, and a desire to get out there and get his hands dirty finding things out. But the scientists who have created Martin and Theo have moved beyond cloning. They understand human genetics well enough to be able to control such choices as eye color or hair color, as well as gender. They have been able to get rid of certain genetic diseases as well.
And the scientists believe that this is good. After all, when you get a clone, you get the same old thing over again. With genetic engineering, you get "new and improved."
Actually, I wrote The Sky Inside well before President Obama got elected. In fact, I wrote it before President Bush started warning the country about avian flu.
I didn't put politics of either flavor into this book. I just think that if a public official wanted to scare people into domes, he or she would need some natural or manmade disaster with which to threaten his public, and an epidemic would be the easiest one to fake.
No. I wrote this book when I was homesick for America, and I wanted it to feel as American as possible—my kind of American. That's why it's set in the Southwest, my home, and that's why it's full of fun gadgets and bright toys. And, in order to make it feel as "home town" as possible—for me, at least, its first reader— I gave all the characters surnames from my own family. Buckalew, Ellis, Bennett, Thomasson, and Glass are names from my family tree. So, no symbolism. I just liked the name.
About seventy years before the beginning of The Sky Inside. If the story took place in a wetter environment, such as the East Coast, the houses and roads Martin discovers outside would show even more serious damage.