One of the best standalone books I have ever read! Definitely a must-read for all ages! ( )

I suppose not every ten-year-old reads this book and realizes that if her parents suddenly died she could survive very well alone with her two-year-old brother.
I had grown up as an only child and had been raised to be independent and to be self-sufficient. This story alerted me to how independent I had actually become, but what's more -- it informed me that you had a responsibility to care for those you were loyal to and to protect the small from those who would bully and take advantage of them.
Lisa, the story's hero (for she is a hero), is jarringly real with all her flaws and virtues. Her devotedly loyal nature and her willingness to protect those weaker than her demonstrate the possibility of humanity's survival, and not merely human survival, in a world as rapacious as The Lord of the Flies. ( )

I remember reading this book when I was in 3rd or 4th grade and I remember loving it so much I did a book report on it. Looking back as an adult, I wonder if anyone was concerned about what I was reading. The Girl Who Owned a city is about a ten-year-old girl named Lisa who along with her younger brother, Todd, survive a plague that kills anyone over the age of twelve. So basically it's the 1970s version of Lord of the Flies with a female protagonist. Since all the adults are dead the children begin to form gangs for survival and protection. Lisa, Todd and a group other children form the Grand Avenue gang and turn their entire neighborhood into a fortress. I think why I liked this book so much as a kid was the thought of being on your own and having to take care of yourself. There's a part where Lisa has to drive a car to go loot some homes and stores. Nelson goes into detail about the process of creating the big fortress, the kind of booby traps the kids make (including Molotov cocktails and attack dogs). Looking back, this book was kind of nuts. I had read that this is the only book that O.T. Nelson has written and was based on an idea about what if his children were left alone without him. At some points in the story, it feels like Nelson is speaking through Lisa so she acts more like a middle-aged man than a girl. I would recommend this book for slightly older readers, like eleven and up. This might be a great book for guy readers, there's enough action and adventure to keep them interested.

After a virus wipes out everyone over age 12, one girl finds she has enough determination to not only survive against the gangs, but also to make plans to rebuild a community for hundreds of other children. It's a little implausible, of course, but the author makes it seem possible. And it's a little didactic, but then lots of children's books are. And, as it's told in omniscient third, there is more telling than showing. Still and all it's interesting, exciting, and would be well-suited to many classroom libraries. ( )

This was one of my favorite books as a kid because the protagonist is a ten year old girl surviving in a post-plague world without adults when every one else is starving because she thinks through her problems. It doesn't quite hold up to rereading as an adult like some classics do--I felt talked down to quite a bit as the main themes are repeated clearly and often. As it turns out, this book was meant to be Ayn Rand for children. ( )