Parents and teens who read the book together can discuss a host of sociopolitical and historical issues, from institutional racism and white supremacy to shadism, passing, educational segregation, well-intentioned but ineffective white benevolence, and more.ĭREAD NATION is a historical zombie thriller that takes place in an alternative universe in which the Civil War ended when the dead at Gettysburg began to rise up and consume soldiers from both armies.

There are also some racial slurs of the era ('darkie,' 'colored,' 'pickaninny,' 'coon,' etc.) in the story. Like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the book features a good deal of violence, as is appropriate in a story about zombie slayers (lots of deaths either from the undead eating live humans, or from humans shooting, stabbing, decapitating the undead, or from people beating, stabbing, and shooting one another). Author Justina Ireland explores what would've happened had zombies (or shamblers, as they're called in the book) stopped the war in order for Americans to come together to battle the undead (or force black and indigenous folks to fight them). Civil War ends - not with the South's surrender, but when the dead begin to rise up on the battlefields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville. Parents need to know that Dread Nation is an alternative-history zombie thriller that takes place after the U.S. She holds a BA in History from Georgia Southern and an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University.Adults drink at dinners, men smoke pipes use of laudanum, smelling salts, other medicines is mentioned.ĭid you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

She is a former editor in chief of FIYAH Literary Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, for which she won a World Fantasy Award. Justina Ireland is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous books including Dread Nation and its sequel Deathless Divide, the middle-grade novel Ophie's Ghosts, which won the Scott O'Dell award for historical fiction, and a number of Star Wars books including Flight of the Falcon: Lando’s Luck, Spark of the Resistance, A Test of Courage, Out of the Shadows, and Mission to Disaster.

She holds a BA in History from Georgia Southern and an MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University.

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