House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
	List Price:   $10.99 Unit Price:   $8.79 You Save:   $2.20 (20%) ISBN-10:   0689852231 ISBN-13:   9780689852237 Publisher:   Simon & Schuster; Atheneum Edition:   Reprint, illustrated Category:   Middle School Pub. Date:   April 2004 Pages:   416 Format:   Paperback Ages:   11 and UP
Awards
2004  Beehive Young Adults' Book Award (USA)  Nominee/Honoree  2005  Sequoyah Book Award (USA)  Nominee/Honoree  2005  Nevada Young Readers Award (USA)  Nominee/Honoree  2004  Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award (USA)  Nominee/Honoree  2004  Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award (USA)  Nominee/Honoree
Subjects
CHILDREN'S FICTION CLONING_FICTION SCIENCE FICTION
Description/Notes
Quiz # (Quiz Name): 61393 (House of the Scorpion) Reading Level: 5.1 Interest Level: Middle Grade Plus Point Value: 15.0 Matteo Alacran was not Born; He was Harvested. His DNA came from El Patron, lord of a country called Opium-a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. Matt's first cell split and divided inside a petri dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster-except for El Patron. El Patron loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself. As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters, including El Patron's power-hungry family, and he is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape is the only chance Matt has to survive. But escape from the Alacran Estate is no guarantee of freedom, because Matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn't even suspect. A Simon Pulse Guide for Reading Groups Matt is a clone of El Patr?n, a powerful drug lord of the land of Opium, which is located between the United States and Mexico. For six years, he has lived in a tiny cottage in the poppy fields with Celia, a kind and deeply religious servant woman who is charged with his care and safety. He knows little about his existence until he is discovered by a group of children playing in the fields and wonders why he isn''t like them. Though Matt has been spared the fate of most clones, who have their intelligence destroyed at birth, the evil inhabitants of El Patr?n''s empire consider him a 'beast' and an 'eejit.' When El Patr?n dies at the age of 146, fourteen-year-old Matt escapes Opium with the help of Celia and Tam Lin, his devoted bodyguard who wants to right his own wrongs. After a near misadventure in his escape, Matt makes his way back home and begins to rid the country of its evils.