The City of Ember Book Summary

The City of Ember, a science fiction novel by Jeanne DuPrau, takes place in an underground city that was made to keep the human race alive after the war/plague. The underground city, Ember, is falling apart and running out supplies such as food, clothes, soap and school items. It is a dark, damp, mold filled, dying city. The people in the city have become less aware of what humans used to know and do not know how to fix broken things and only know how to replace them. This is why, when supplies start to run out, they are forced to leave the city because they do not know how to survive. In the book, the main character, a 12 year old girl named Lina, finds a piece of paper with instructions. The instructions explain how to leave Ember once Earth becomes safe to live on again. While on her journey, Lina gets help from a boy named Doon.  In the end, the people of Ember get to the world above, but have no idea how to survive. The book seems to be addressing that today we do not make our own things anymore and we are materialistic consumers.

Railroad Track Anvil

I could not believe what I saw in front of me. It was exactly what I wanted. Ever since I learned about backsmithing I have wanted to set up my own forge and blacksmith at home. Last year I made a forge and I made an anvil out of a double shoulder tie plate, a metal piece that holds the train track onto the wood beams. It works well enough but it does not have a lot of rebound. Rebound is the distance the hammer bounces back when you hit the anvil with a hammer. The higher the hammer bounces, the better the anvil. I have been trying to find a piece of foot long railroad track for over a year. Very recently I explored on the railroads in Miami. I went down the tracks for a quarter mile. I was looking around the bushes for railroad spikes and perhaps a chunk of railroad track. Listening to the cars passing by I saw a tent hidden in the bushes, where perhaps a homeless person lives. I kept walking farther and something caught my eye. Tossed near the bushes there were two five foot long, discarded pieces of railroad track thrown off to the side. I approached them and for a second I could not believe what I saw. Laying in between the two larger pieces was an 18 inch long section of railroad track. This was exactly what I have been looking for over the past year. My heart started racing as I ran over to pick it up. I was surprised how much it weighed. I imagined it was over 50 pounds. I carried it back to the car, stopping to rest many times along the way. My arms began to ache but I knew I had to bring this perfect anvil back. Once home, I weighed it on my scale and I was amazed to see that it weighed 64.4 pounds.