Title: The Memory Bank
Author: Carolyn Coman, Rob Shepperson (Illustrator)Reading Level: 8 to 12
Location: J Coman
The Memory Bank is the story of Hope Scroggins, who lives with her beloved sister Honey and the Dursley-esque parents they share. In fact these parents are SO horribly awful that one day, when the sisters disobey the rule against "no laughing", they banish Honey forever, telling Hope that she must simply "forget" her.
Hope knows that she HAS to find her sister again, before her memories of Honey fade. But before she can even begin to look, she's whisked away to the World Wide Memory Bank, where her accounts are in disarray...
There she learns about the process of how dreams and memories are kept safe. She also learns that there's a group of misfits called the Clean Slate Gang who want to destroy the Memory Bank, and all of the dreams and memories kept there. What she doesn't know is that Honey has been picked up by the Clean Slate Gang, and they're heading right for the Memory Bank.
The story of how Hope makes her way through this brewing conflict and rescues her little sister is full of tension and suspense, set in a vividly imagined world of strange machines and wonderful characters.
Bottomline:
I had a love/hate relationship with this book. I loved the main character, Hope, as she searches for her abandoned sister, Hunny, and her adventures in the Memory Bank. I hated the horrible parents who just don't care about their children and abandon Hunny because she was laughing too much? Why are author's writing about these horrible, neglectful, apathetic parents? What's the purpose? Anyway, this book had great illustrations that augmented the story. What I didn't understand was the extra storyline of the misfit children trying to sabotage the Memory Bank with lollipops? And the ending was a bit ambiguous. Anyway, overall it was a cute book!
