Z for Zacheriah
Z for ZacheriahThe book I read was called
Z for Zachariah.
This book was written by
Robert C. O’Brien.
This story took place in a valley which was most likely one of the only non-radioactive places left on Earth. The rest of the world became radioactive after a war which used nerve gasses in their bombs. This made the Earth unsupportive of life. This most likely happened in the late A.D. 2000’s.
The main character in the story was a young 16 year old girl named Ann Burden who was the only one left in the valley. She THOUGHT she was the only person left living on the face of the Earth. She had stayed there alone for almost a year, and then an intruder came, Mr. Loomis.
Mr. Loomis is a scientist who had been working on an experiment using a safe-suit which protected people from harmful radioactivity. He used this suit to travel around to find ANY OTHER people who were left living. He traveled all the way to Ann’s valley. The first proof of animal life he found was Faro, a dog.
Faro is a dog that was left alone in the valley with Ann. He was originally David’s dog. Once David did not come back, Faro became a friend of Ann’s. Once Mr. Loomis came to the valley, Faro befriended Ann and took the scientist’s side.
Ann lived in the valley all alone until Mr. Loomis came along and intruded into her space. She first spied on him because she was concerned of his mental condition. “Is he nice?” “Is he crazy” she constantly asked herself. She saw him swim in a dead river. There was no life in there, which was a sign of radioactivity. Mr. Loomis was just so eager to jump into the water that he did not even stop to look and see if the water was full of life, or dead as it was. She watched him from up in the cave, and noticed that his activity had lessened so much in the past few hours. She began to think that he was sick, so she went down to his tent to help him. She nursed him until he could talk clearly and he asked her to take the Geiger and measure the radioactivity level in the river. She did as he said and discovered that Mr. Loomis had Radiation Poisoning. She took care of him as he became well, and also learned about his past as she hoped for a future for both of them. She always dreamed of having children live in the valley. This was her chance. I came to believe that this made her gullible to his every word. Once he was better and now able to walk, he began to order her around. She did as he said. She then realized that he had been controlling her and that it was wrong for him to do so. She thought about going...
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