Thank you to Net Galley and Random House Children's for the egalley of this book to read and give my honest review, The opinions expressed here are my own.
I will admit, I'm on a middle grade kick right now, so this one fit the bill.
I loved that this book opened a world of dystopian for his reader. Set in WWII where there is little to no technology, the characters have to use their wit to defeat bandits who terrorize their town.
I really enjoyed the main characters, Hope, She doesn't think much of herself, yet when called to arms, she really does step up. It opens to her a world where the things she can do become very important to saving those around her. In this way, the story is one of growth and coming to understand oneself. I think middle grade readers will identify with her and her struggles and find something of her in themselves.
The plot is one of adventure from page one drawing the reader in. The world building is really great and I love that the author chose to use this timeline to introduce a post-apocalyptic world to this age group. It is definitely crafted in a way that middle grade readers will understand what is going on. There are lots of thrills and a good amount of excitement to keep the reader engaged.
Overall this was a fun read I'd highly recommend to any middle school reader who loves a bit of adventure and thrill.

I liked this a lot. Despite its very heavy plot, the book was full of hope and fun adventure. I would've loved this when I was 12 or 13 and wish it could've been around then!

Set, in the future, this might not be the book to read during the 2020 pandemic as I have. All technology has been destroyed and people are working to just invent useful items in this agrarian society. There's lots of good adventure in this science fiction account.

I received this book from Netgalley to review a very long time ago. My best intention was to read it right away, but it didn't work out that way.

This is a tween to YA dystopian book. It was very well written and really captured my attention and imagination. I wish that I had read it sooner!

This book takes place after WWIII. The Earth has been drastically altered and people live with little to no technology. People live in fortified villages to try to stay safe from bandits who roam and steal what they do not produce themselves. This book is full of adventure. Hope and her friends are early teens who have to use skills the cultivated on the sly to save their town when bandits strike.

I think this is a wonderful book for kids of all ages (that includes adults). It does contain non-graphic violence.

I am excited about middle-grade author Peggy Eddleman’s debut book Sky Jumpers. Due out on September 24th, this post-apocalyptic story is refreshing among a sea of vampires and werewolves.
There was a clear theme to this story of playing to your strengths, a theme with which every tween out there can definitely identify. In this post World War III environment, there are no power plants or electricity and properties of metal have changed, so much of the technology current teens take for granted no longer exists. The community of White Rock that Sky Jumpers focuses our attention on thrives on human ingenuity and invention. In so doing, Eddleman spotlights humanity’s resiliency rather than dwelling on the struggle to survive. This is great in theory, but main character Hope is not a great inventor, it is not one of her strengths. When her invention doesn’t even qualify for entry into the annual Harvest Festival, she feels defeated in every way possible.
I would put Sky Jumpers squarely in the league of childhood favorites like Hatch, My Side of the Mountain, and A Wrinkle in Time. It’s perfect for the fifth or sixth grade reader. The vocabulary and tension are appropriate; there is no swearing or sexual innuendo of any kind. Hope is a strong female lead without drawing attention to the fact that she’s a twelve year old girl. Her character could have just as easily been male which I think makes her casting all the stronger.
I liked that while the drama wasn’t unnecessarily frightening, it was still authentic. The good guys were clearly good and the bad guys were clearly bad; the lines of demarcation were easy to identify. The pacing was also excellent. The story surged forward and paused in a natural flow which kept the story moving while still giving us time to invest. Probably most significant to me is that it has a strong ending, pulling us full circle, as Hope learns what her strengths are and is recognized for her unique contributions to her community.

This post-apocalyptic setting is a little unusual compared to most that I've read. So many novels today set in the future after a nuclear holocaust are dystopian novels of the tremendous struggles and meager existence of deformed survivors. But this book paints a slightly brighter picture - though not all is smooth skies (or there wouldn't be any drama to the story).

Hope is a twelve-year-old living in a small town called White Rock in an age after the country was ravaged by the "Green Bombs" of World War III. White Rock is quite secluded, with few ways to get to the community. The community is in a crater left by one of the bombs and strange swirls of air create drafts through the crater referred to as Bomb's Breath. Hope and some of her younger friends cliff dive into the Bomb's Breath where the air currents cause the children to float gently to the ground. But catching the right current is tricky and a wrong move means a long fall to certain death, so sky jumping is forbidden by the parents. Still, Hope knows that she and her friends can do it, repeatedly and safely.

One of the results of the war is the loss of knowledge of how many things were done before the war. To encourage a return to knowledge, White Rock hosts an invention competition, hoping the youth of the day will come up with a wide variety of necessary and/or simply helpful inventions. Not only has Hope never won this competition, her inventions usually fail early on and she doesn't have a project worthy of even entering the contest. She assumes it's because of her failures that her father, much beloved in the community, won't run for the role of leader in the village.

A band of thieves manages to make it into the village, holding the adults hostage, but leaving the children alone. The thieves want the antibiotics that the White Rock villagers have created and are willing to kill to get it. Hope's father is willing to share, but the plant that the medicine is extracted from isn't ready, and the thieves aren't willing to wait.

The only hope for the community is for Hope and her friends to journey outside the safety of the crater and get a military force to save them. But escaping the community means going through the Bomb's Breath and a heavy winter storm.

This book was a lot of fun. The description of the Bomb's Breath is wonderful and certainly made me wish I could enjoy it...though I wouldn't want to have to go through another world war for that to happen.

The descriptions of life after 'the bombs' feels optimistically realistic - almost adventurous fun - which of course is what it is trying to represent. This is 'fun' enough for school-aged kids to read, with plenty of adventure and CTPP (Cool Things Per Page).

The writing is generally swift and flows nicely, capturing and holding a young reader's interest. There are moments when author Peggy Eddleman stops telling the story and just provides an information dump for the reader, but other than that the story is exciting for the younger readers and Eddleman does a very nice job of world building. This is the sort of book that is easy for younger readers to get excited about and I look forward to reader the next book in the series.

Looking for a good book? <em>Sky Jumpers</em> is an adventurous post-apocalypse story by Peggy Eddleman for younger readers and provides an exciting read.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Really didn't enjoy the pacing of this book and while the world was well-crafted, it seemed incredibly far-fetched and implausible.