Ms. Madden Read "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman

 

Scythe by Neal Shusterman is one of the Lone Star novels that my students have most enjoyed in the last few years.  The novel was originally published in 2016 and adopted into the Lone Star novel list in 2018 by the Texas Library Association.  My students ask me to read this novel to them each year. Many of them continue reading the trilogy including The Thunderhead and The Toll on their own.

This dystopian novel is set in the future when death and mortality are no longer a concern for humanity.  Mankind has solved all illnesses and eradicated violence.  Politicians no longer rule the world, and everyone can live a happy life eternally.  Mankind has even instituted a way for people to turn back their age clocks and restart their lives at an earlier age.  Some take advantage of this by turning the corner to look and feel younger, some even turn the corner to start another life with a new family and circumstances.  

 Because mankind no longer has to worry about death or illness, the population has the potential to overrun the world and its resources.  Scythedom was created as a way to manage the human population. Each ordained Scythe has the task of gleaning or killing, a certain number of humans each year.  The world is broken down into regions, and each region has its own set of Scythes.  

This novel includes a male and a female Scythe apprentice, Citra and Rowan, who have been invited to study for a qualification to become Scythes under their master or sponsor Scythe, Faraday.  Neither Citra nor Rowan really wants to be a Scythe due to their moral compass, and their local Scythe conclave has stipulated that only one of them will earn the Scythe ring and honor.  

Although governments have been abolished, the MidMerica Scythedom has cliques of Scythes with different beliefs on who and how to glean.  Some Scythes have more power and prestige than others, and Citra and Rowan find themselves in the middle of both camps after losing their sponsor Scythe.  

At one of his author visits to Frisco, I learned that the author, Neal Shusterman, came up with the idea for the novel while he was helping his mother during her last days in hospice.  He began to wonder what the world would be like without death. He pondered the impact on society if there was only one way to die, or be gleaned, where illness and tragedy did not plague people or tear families apart.