Ponti, J. (2012). Dead city. New York: Aladdin. p. 277.
Molly Bigelow is a middle school student just starting at the Metropolitan Institute of Science and Technology, MIST, who excels at judo, fencing and like to hang out at the morgue where her mom used to work. During her summer, she befriends the other girl interning at the morgue, Natalie, who happens to go to MIST as well. On her first day, Molly is sitting alone at lunch until Natalie and two of her friends join her at the table. After school, Molly is waiting for the subway to take her back to New York when a guy comes after her. She tries everything she can to get away from him but is not able to until Natalie shows up and scares the guy off. Natalie gets Molly to take the tram back to New York and takes her to on of the guy’s house’s where they inform her she has been chosen to join an elite group called the Omegas. The Omegas job is to protect and police the “undead” of New York. As Molly learns more about the Omegas, she comes to realize what her mom was and how she was preparing her for this journey.
This book is a fantasy novel that has some real life situations students can relate to. Molly’s mom died of cancer recently and she is struggling with the loss. She has never been popular, like her sister, and is worried that she will not fit in at her new school. Of course that is where the real life situations stop and fantasy picks up. Molly is asked to join an elite group at her school called the Omegas who are really zombie hunters. She goes through training to learn more about the zombies of New York and the Omegas duties to them. Molly learns how to distinguish between the different types of zombies and how to kill them. There is some violence in the book with several zombies being killed and Molly and her friends put in some dangerous situations because of Molly’s actions.
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