Turnabout

Publishers Weekly

At age 100, Melly and the other Riverside nursing home residents are injected with a drug to make them "unage" yet find that they cannot stop the process. "Haddix successfully shuttles readers between three different eras and builds up to a surprising final face-off," said PW. Ages 10-14. (May) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In her thought-provoking science fiction adventure, Haddix (Just Ella) successfully shuttles readers between three different eras, convincingly covering the extensive life of Amelia (Melly) Hazelwood. At age 100, Melly and other Riverside nursing home residents were injected with the experimental drug PT-1 The drug was supposed to make them "unage" until they reached a self-determined ideal age, at which point they would get another shot to stop the process. The second shot, however, proved deadly, and the participants of Project Turnabout were doomed to unage until they reached zero. Now teenagers, Melly and her stubborn sidekick Anny Beth need to find parents who can care for them in their approaching infancy. But when a snooping reporter begins to track Melly, the pair must put their search on hold and flee. Haddix handles this complex plot with ease, beginning the various entries either just after 2000 or in 2085 (with flashbacks in between). Readers will likely enjoy Haddix's predictions for the future (Perfect Toothpaste replaces dentists and cars drive themselves). The reporter's transformation from hard-nosed to maternal seems a bit sudden, but Haddix keeps the pacing smooth and builds up to a surprising final face-off. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Children's Literature

Like Tuck Everlasting but without the poetry, this futuristic novel imagines the consequences of living a longerthannormal lifespan. In 2001, nursing home inhabitants Melly and Anny Beth participate in Project Turnabout. Given a drug to reverse aging, they have proceeded to age backward for nearly 85 years. Now, in 2085, they have discovered that they can't stop the deaging process and so the nowteenagers must search for someone to act as a parent when they inevitably hit single digits. Added to this, while they have kept their existence a secret, someone is trying to track them down via computer and the two girls must flee to save their identity from discovery. Told in alternating chapters moving either forward or backward, the story appeals more to intellect than to emotion as Haddix plays with the notion that these energetic teenagers nonetheless remember much of their previous two centuries so their actions seem more deliberate and their conversation sounds "older". Themes worthy of discussion include, of course, whether one would want to live a longer lifespan, whether the government has a right or responsibility to prohibit genetic manipulation, whether memory is a help or a hindrance, and the nature of friendship and love. As in other futuristic novels, this one imagines universal health care but with a BigBrother price to pay, a near cashless economy, and nature preserves that one needs permits to visit, and readers may speculate on how society could get there from present day. A lively author's note details the science upon which the deaging premise rests. Haddix enjoys a strong reputation among middle schoolers with her book, Running Out of Time, and this novel, while not assatisfying a read, will surely attract their attention, as well. 2000, Simon & Schuster, Ages 12 to 16, $17.00. Reviewer: Susan Hepler

VOYA

This futuristic novel, which addresses the repercussions of a medically produced "fountain of youth," will grab the reader's attention on page one. Haddix draws the reader in with Amelia (Melly) Hazelwood, who turns sixteen on April 21, 2085. Not a typical teenager, she actually is an old woman who becomes physically younger each day. Melly's story actually began eighty-five years earlier when someone asked one hundred-year-old Melly, "Do you want to be younger?" Melly was sure that her signature on the document was not binding—after all, she was practically dead. Shortly after, however, Amelia and many other nursing home residents, including the outspoken Anny Beth, unknowingly become part of Project Turnabout, an unauthorized medical experiment to make them young again. Unlike many of the others, Melly and Anny Beth were determined to live their reverse life better than they had their first. Now teenagers, they know that soon they will not be able to care for themselves and that they must find an adult to look after them as they un-age. Returning to Kentucky where Melly grew up, they find A. J. Hazelwood, the "mother" who will help her ancestors un-age to their births, not knowing what will happen when that moment arrives. Haddix has crafted a thought-provoking tale that raises medical ethics questions while deftly weaving together an unforgettable story of two feisty, twenty-first century friends, who plan to live their second life to the fullest, right back to their birth. Even the novice science fiction reader will be wrapped up in the story as they relate to Melly's frustration with the changes occurring in her body, which she cannot control. VOYA CODES: 5Q 4P M J S (Hardto imagine it being any better written; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2000, Simon & Schuster, 223p, $17. Ages 12 to 18. Reviewer: Ruth Cox

SOURCE: VOYA, October 2000 (Vol. 23, No. 4)

KLIATT

To quote KLIATT's Nov. 2000 review of the hardcover edition: In the year 2000, two feisty elderly women are among the nursing home residents selected to be in a scientific experiment called Project Turnabout. Melly and Anny Beth receive an injection that miraculously reverses the aging process...Meanwhile, frighteningly, their old memories are gradually being lost. Melly and Anny Beth leave the scientific academy that is conducting this dangerous and illegal experiment and stay together to help each other out as they experience a second chance at life, meanwhile getting younger all the time and trying to evade those who become suspicious of them. Now, in the year 2085, they're physiologically teenagers, and are still continuing to grow younger. Who will look after them when they grow too young to take care of themselves? And why is a reporter trying to track Melly down? They return to their home state of Kentucky where they find the answers to these questions, meanwhile pondering the moral issues raised by scientific experimentation and by the prospect of immortality. This is a fast moving and thought-provoking read by the author of Just Ella and other YA novels. Melly and Anny Beth are enterprising and sympathetic heroines, and Haddix's near-future world, with almost no privacy left, is credible. An author's note at the end discusses some of the scientific research on reversing the aging process. Category: Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror. KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2000, Simon & Schuster, Aladdin, 232p., $5.99. Ages 13 to 18. Reviewer: Paula Rohrlick; KLIATT SOURCE: KLIATT, March 2002 (Vol. 36, No. 2)

KLIATT - Paula Rohrlick

To quote the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, November 2000: In the year 2000, two feisty elderly women are among the nursing home residents selected to be in a scientific experiment called Project Turnabout. Melly and Anny Beth receive an injection that miraculously reverses the aging process. A second injection is supposed to halt the process—but it proves fatal when it is attempted. Meanwhile, frighteningly, their old memories are gradually being lost. Melly and Anny Beth leave the scientific academy that is conducting this dangerous and illegal experiment and stay together to help each other out as they experience a second chance at life, meanwhile getting younger all the time and trying to evade those who become suspicious of them. Now, in the year 2085, they're physiologically teenagers, and are still continuing to grow younger. Who will look after them when they grow too young to take care of themselves? And why is a reporter trying to track Melly down? They return to their home state of Kentucky where they find the answers to these questions, meanwhile pondering the moral issues raised by scientific experimentation and by the prospect of immortality. This is a fast-moving and thought-provoking read by the author of Just Ella and other YA novels. Melly and Anny Beth are enterprising and sympathetic heroines, and Haddix's near-future world, with almost no privacy left, is credible. An author's note at the end discusses some of the scientific research on reversing the aging process.

School Library Journal

Gr 6-10-Eighty-five years ago, Melly and Anny Beth were old women participating in a highly secret research study that reversed the aging process. However, the directors of Project Turnabout couldn't halt the reversal, and the women have "unaged" back into teenagers. Soon they will become so young that they will no longer care for themselves. Even worse, a reporter's interest in Melly is threatening to destroy the privacy that the teens alone still value in the publicity-mad culture of the year 2085. The suspense is unflagging as the two flee from unwanted exposure and search for a way to live out the rest of their days. The futuristic setting, including the consensual media circus of daily life, is scarily believable. The girls are well drawn, distinct characters, their teenaged selves logical extensions of their adult personas with one important difference: Melly and Anny Beth have learned from the mistakes of their "first lives" and accomplished more the second time around. The novel ends with the suggestion that longer life might be a blessing, an unusual perspective in science fiction and fantasy for young people, where extreme longevity is often depicted as a burden. Recommend this one to fans of Michael Crichton and Robin Cook, or pair it with Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting (Farrar, 1975) for a thoughtful discussion about human life and human potential.-Beth Wright, Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, VT Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Kirkus Reviews

In this intriguing, thought-provoking, and certainly original novel, Amelia Lenore Hazelwood is 100 years old and living in a nursing home where the only thing she has to look forward to is death. Everything changes though when 50 of the nursing-home residents are selected to participate in a top-secret "unaging" experiment, labeled Project Turnabout. Using a special chemical, the old people will become younger and younger until they take a drug that will stop the de-aging process—then they will forever be that age. But there's been a problem, and the drug designed to stop the process doesn't work. Now Amelia and the others face de-aging until infancy and then, presumably, death. The story, told by Amelia as the process begins in the year 2000 and also as a 16-year-old (now nicknamed "Melly") in 2085, follows Melly and her best friend Anny Beth's attempts to find someone to take care of them as they revert to childhood and babyhood. The two friends run away to Amelia's childhood home which, surprisingly, still stands and is inhabited by Melly's great-great-great granddaughter, A.J. Hazelwood. Ironically, A.J., a reporter, has been researching Amelia's life. Melly decides that A.J. is the best candidate to be her surrogate mother and they form a highly unusual family. As in some of her other work, Haddix (Among the Hidden, 1998, etc.) examines the role of an outsider navigating her way through an unfamiliar culture. She gets in a few good digs at some of the less savory aspects of American popular culture that only get worse as her fictional 21st century progresses. " ‘Why is it,' Anny Beth asks as the two watch TV, ‘thatwitheverything else that's improved in the last eighty years, TV news still stinks?' " The book raises philosophical questions that young-adult readers will sink their teeth into about the desirability of living longer lives than we do today, of the role of old people in our society, and about the ethics of medical experimentation. A fascinating concept engrossingly told. (Fiction. 11-16)

From the Publisher

"Intriguing, thought-provoking, and certainly original."

— Kirkus Reviews

"The suspense is unflagging.... Recommend this one to the fans of Michael Crichton and Robin Cook."

— SLJ