Recently, I’ve found myself falling back into my middle school routine of reading every dystopian book I can find. Whether it’s prompted by the dystopia-themed escape room I’ve been working on at Des Moines Public Library, or the fact Parable of the Sower was one of the most requested books at DMPL in January — despite being published more than 30 years ago — these books have been offering me a nostalgic escape from my day to day.
While my planned escape room is inspired by older classics such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, I have gravitated to rereading Octavia Butler’s Parable series. The first book, Parable of the Sower, follows Lauren, a teen growing up in a near-future southern California community. Lauren has a condition which makes her hypersensitive to the emotions and pain of others, leaving her especially susceptible to the increasingly unstable society around her.
Though published in 1993, the topics brought up in the novel, like climate change and community, are still urgent. It’s no wonder that in 2006, Butler herself told The Indypendent that the Parable books “serve as cautionary tales,” and the series “calls people’s attention to the fact that so much needs to be done.”…