“Running Out of Time” was Margaret Peterson Haddix’s first novel, and it’s completely fascinating.
Jessie is a young teenager living in the 1840’s. An outbreak of diphtheria sweeps through their small town of Clifton, and there is no medicine to help with it. Jessie’s mother is the one everybody comes to when they’re sick, but even with her skills, she’s powerless to stop the disease.
She takes Jessie to a secluded spot in the woods and there tells her the surprising truth about their town. To them, it’s 1840, but in the outside world, it’s 1996. She then goes on to explain that Clifton is a tourist attraction and that people come from miles around to watch the inhabitants of Clifton live their daily lives by use of television monitors. Jessie feels sick, like their whole lives have been a lie, and indeed, they have. The adults are the only ones who know – the children believe that the year is 1840.
Worse than this, however, is the fact that the owners of the village have made life like a prison. They are guarded and can’t leave. The medical help they used to receive has been taken from them. They are trapped and now are dying.
Jessie’s mother then tells her that she needs to leave Clifton and go for help. Jessie is scared – how is she going to escape? Her mother shows her a secret tunnel, and pulls out some clothes she kept from when she lived on the outside. Wearing jeans and a T-shirt – both unfamiliar after her usual dress—Jessie goes through the trap door and manages to get out.
But things take a treacherous turn when she follows the instructions her mother gave her, and she has to rely on her own wits to get out of the situation alive.
I read this book in one sitting. It was fast-paced, original, and completely engrossing.
(This book was first published in 1995 by Simon and Schuster.)
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