Stead, Rebecca 1968(?)-

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Stead, Rebecca 1968(?)-

Personal

Born c. 1968, in New York, NY; married; children: two sons. Education: Vassar College, bachelor's degree, 1989; New York University, J.D., 1994.

Addresses

E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

Career

Children's author. Formerly worked as an attorney and public defender.

Writings

First Light, Wendy Lamb Books (New York, NY), 2007.

You Are Here, Wendy Lamb Books (New York, NY), 2009.

Sidelights

Rebecca Stead, a former public defender, revisited her interest in writing while raising her two sons and produced the young-adult novel First Light. In addition to tapping current concerns about global climate change, the novel also engages children's love of fantasy and adventure and "rests on an intriguing premise" about a secret world, according to a Publishers Weekly contributor.

First Light focuses on twelve-year-old Peter, the son of a glaciologist whose focus is global warming. When he accompanies his parents to Greenland, where his father is studying the ice shield, Peter is excited about the potential for cold-weather adventures in an exotic location. He is also increasingly plagued by the same unusual headaches that trouble his genetic scientist mom. Then he meets Thea, a fourteen-year-old young woman who is the descendent of an Englishwoman who established a secret commune called Gracehope, located deep within the Greenland icecap. Thea is Grace's last direct female descendent, and she comes to believe that it is time for her community to rejoin the rest of mankind. She meets Peter just as she reaches Earth's surface and sees the sun for the first time. As Stead's story unfolds, Peter and Thea discover a surprising bond as they grapple with the secrets of past generations. The Publishers Weekly critic called it "a testament to [Stead's] … storytelling" that this alternate world and the story's adventurous young protagonists "are both credible and absorbing." "Gracehope itself is sketched with sure strokes, its icy setting and its matriarchal social structure fresh and believable," wrote Vicky Smith in her Horn Book review of First Light. School Library Journal contributor Connie Tyrrell Burns deemed the novel "an exciting, engaging mix of science fiction, mystery, and adventure." While Jennifer Hubert noted several "gaps in Gracehope's invented mythology," her Booklist review dubbed First Light a "solid-well-meaning fantasy," and a Kirkus Reviews critic described Stead's novel as a "compelling contemporary ice-age mystery."