The Prophet of Yonwood
Jeanne DuPrau
 The story begins with a young girl named Nickie travelling with her Aunt Crystal to an old house in Yonwood, North Carolina. Nickie's great-grandfather has died, and the house where he lived, known as Greenhaven, is inherited by Crystal and Nickie's family, who plan to sell it. Nickie's mom is working in Philadelphia and her father is assigned to a secret government project (The City of Ember) and communicates with Nickie via short postcards. In Yonwood, a local woman named Althea Tower sees a vision of the future with the world in burning flames and smoke, and subsequently spends months in a dream-like semi-conscious state, in which she mutters indistinct phrases and words. Brenda Beeson, a woman in the town, calls them instructions from God and requires townspeople to comply with her interpretation of the words, and insists that the entire city quit their "wrong" ways and start to be good people, so God would be with them. As a prominent community leader she directs the police in the town to enforce the 'war against evil', Althea's ramblings as admonitions from God. Those who fail to follow God's words are fitted with buzzing bracelets and ostracised. Mrs Beeson's interpretations gradually become more and more strict and unreasonable: beginning with 'no sinners' and 'no singing', they progress to 'no lights' and eventually 'no dogs'. During this time, Nickie has discovered a girl and a dog living in the third floor nursery of Greenhaven. When the girl, Amanda, leaves to take care of Althea, Nickie keeps the dog and she falls foul of Mrs Beeson's ban on dogs. A local boy, Grover, whom Nickie has befriended is also a target of the war against evil and the majority of the book deals with Nickie's struggle with her own desires to be 'good' and do what is 'right'. The book features a fierce under-current outlining the verbal conflict between the U.S. and the 'Phalanx Nations'. Fears that the Phalanx Nations are sending terrorists and spies to the U.S. results in the imposition of a deadline for action against the enemy and preparations for the coming crisis (i.e. war). Through Nickie's actions, Althea Tower is brought back to her senses and the actions of Mrs Beeson are overthrown. The story concludes with Nickie returning to her parents who are moving to California to be near her father's work. In the final chapters it is revealed that Nickie's father is one of the builders of Ember and that eventually Nickie, in her sixties, is offered a place as one of the founders of the city. On her way to Ember, Nickie writes a brief journal that she hides behind a rock for someone to read in the future. This is the journal Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow find in The City of Ember.