This is an amazing follow up to Alone; I dare say that I like it better than the original. Told following the same timeline as Maddie, left alone in her Colorado town for 2 years after an imminent threat causes mass evacuations. Away answers the question we were left with, what was the threat?

I found this book to be exciting and a fast-paced read. Told from 4 different POVs and in different writing styles. Ashanti stays in sync with her BFF Maddie and is written in verse. Teddy, Gradin and Harmony use NIV, movie script, production journaling, new articles, and letters to tell their stories. It's very easy to follow each character.

I will recommend to my middle school students and feel this book can be a read-alone.

As a middle school librarian, I will be recommending this book to my students. I have had several students read Alone this year, and I know they will enjoy reading this companion novel. I enjoyed reading the other side of the story and knowing what was happening in the evacuation camps while Maddie was still living in the “contamination zone.” It had been a little bit of time since I finished reading Alone, so after I finished Away, I went back and re-read the end of the first book because I couldn’t remember exactly how Maddie was reunited with her family. I loved reading the backstory of the characters and then seeing how they worked together to solve a huge problem. They demonstrated how persistence, dedication, teamwork, and determination are great attributes to have.
A few drawbacks of the book (at least for me) are the switching back and forth between narrative styles, especially to Teddy’s screenplay sections and the parts of the book that seemed unrealistic. I appreciate how Teddy’s sections were setting the scene to give readers a glimpse into their environment, but I found myself skimming those details the farther I got into the book. I also had to suspend belief in some parts, but this could be the difference between my adult brain processing the situation and how I would have reacted versus how a middle school student might see it since they have less life experience.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and the characters and can’t wait for my middle school students to have the chance to read it!

As a middle school teacher with students who LOVE the book Alone, I was very excited to receive this ARC. We have several copies of Alone, and they are rarely on the shelves as they are almost always in the hands of students. Away does not disappoint! Students will love reading this story from different perspectives, and I know they will be drawn to the different formats throughout the book. Readers will be intrigued as the characters try to uncover the truth about the evacuations. This one is going to be a hit with middle grade readers!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-galley!

At the end of Alone, while the story wraps up nicely, we are left without knowing what really happened to the world Maddie lives in. Freeman could have left us with that, and it would have been fine, but when I saw that there was a follow up, I had to have it. (Thanks NetGalley and Edelweiss--you both came through for me!!)

The story starts the same place Alone starts, but from the perspective of the people who made it onto the transport vans, including Ashanti, Maddie's sleepover buddy. We also meet Grandin, a country boy whose dad refused to get on the transport, Harmony, an aspiring journalist, and Teddy, who loves movies and film. These four are thrown together when the transports arrive at the "camps." As life settles down and time passes, and the people are still not told what existential threat the outside world is facing, these kids aim to get to the bottom of the mystery. When all was revealed, I found the answer to be completely plausible.

I did find it to be a little less compulsively readable than Alone, simply due to all the jumping around in formatting. Ashanti writes in verse, Harmony writes via letters to her aunt, and Teddy's sections read like a screenplay. A neat idea, but it made it a little harder to follow for me.

All in all, a very worthy follow-up to Alone with a satisfying and believable ending!

I really enjoyed this follow-up book to Alone. At first, I wondered if the different points of view would be confusing to students, but I don't believe that it will. I liked the format of the verse and liked how each character had a unique voice/format. I also liked knowing more background for why everyone evacuated, and loved that the KIDS were the one to solve the mystery. A quick read that I thoroughly enjoyed!

Away is a great companion book to Alone - one of the most popular books in my classroom! Students will be excited to read a continuation of the story from a different perspective. I particularly like how the story changes formats - poetry, news reports,documentary etc. It makes for an interesting reading experience!

Awake is a solid companion novel to Alone. Awake follows kids with a different trajectory than Maddie (Alone) in the wake of the mandatory evacuations in Colorado. Told in different ways this novel engages the reader through verse, articles and screenplay, making it a unique reading experience. Megan E Freeman does a great job and created an engaging story for middle grade readers.

This is a heart gripping story. I binge read this.
A catastrophic contagion has affected the entire region The government has forced everyone into regions for their safety. This is a tale of survival and trying to live in the aftermath.

The sequel or companion novel to Alone; a dystopian middle grade novel in verse.

Away features the voices of Gradin, the son of a farmer, Harmony, an aspiring journalist, Teddy, an aspiring film maker, and Ashanti, a girl who loves Greek mythology and her mom is a doctor. Each voice and character is unique and moves the story along. They all find themselves in the same camp after mandatory evacuations. Together, the try to uncover the truth behind the evacuations and the “imminent threat.” I was hoping this book would give the reader more incite into the “imminent threat”, evacuations, and the reason why it took years for people to return home. This book did provide answers but also left me with more questions. Readers who enjoyed the first will enjoy the second one.

FIrst of all, thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book. After reading Alone, I was dying to know more about the cause of the evacuation and what happened to the evacuees. I heard Megan E. Freeman speak at a conference I attended, and when she mentioned her follow-up, I knew I needed to read it. I'm left with mixed emotions after finishing.

Let's start with what I liked. I enjoyed the varied perspectives and the formats the author used for each. I think there's a lot to pull from for lessons on poetry and storytelling. I enjoyed the relationships built between the kids, and I could feel their emotions as the story progressed. My only issue is that the kids seemed like kids through the entire book when actual years had passed and they should've been teenagers. The adults were present and positive, overall.

However, it was incredibly difficult for me to buy into this scenario. How did no one try to involve the federal government? How did family members outside the evacuation zone not have huge protests to let their family members go or to at least let them have more contact with those in the camps? Why would the adults in the camps not be freaking out, demanding to be released? And, finally, SPOILER ALERT -- HOW did the nefarious characters manage to conceal the truth from airplanes flying over on their regular routes or from drones that flew into the massive amount of airspace?

If I were the actual target audience for Away, I probably wouldn't have thought of all of these things in the same way that I do as an adult. Some of them probably would have blown right past me. If I were in 5th or 6th grade, I'd probably be more generous with my stars. For that reason, I'll go 3.5.

Away is told from multiple povs in different formats. I was on the edge of my seat while reading it! I think this book would be a great addition to middle school classrooms and school libraries. (I haven’t read its companion, Alone; but now I want to!)
Thank you to NetGalley, Aladdin Publishing, and the author, Megan E. Freeman, for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Even though it took me some time to dive into Away, I enjoyed learning about the forced mandatory evacuation that led to the original story Alone. I always enjoy multiple points of view, and each character had a distinct voice. Readers will enjoy finding out more about the big picture in Away.

Away is the highly anticipated sequel to Alone. I was so excited to be able to read an advanced copy of this book! Away follows the lives of several of the children who were evacuated. Over time, the children become suspicious of the situation and start wondering if their towns really needed to be evacuated. Are they being lied to? Why are none of the grown-ups believing them? Why don't the people in charge have more answers? The children start to devise a plan to show the evacuation camp what is really happening so hopefully they can go back home. I really enjoyed this book! I had hoped for more of a story about what happened next with Maddie, but she wasn't mentioned much and her character was not in this story.

Megan E. Freeman Has created a beautiful companion to Alone. While Alone was. filled with despair and bleakness, Away leaves you feeling hopeful. about the future. This is a must for any middle grade collection!

Although I and my students LOVED ALONE, this one missed the mark for me. The jumping of the characters and their stories and formats would be a lot for any middle grade students to keep straight. It did start to pick up speed for me near the end, but I'm afraid that a middle schooler would have given up on it long before that.

I was so excited to finally read this sequel to Freeman’s first book in the series, Alone. I finished that book wanting to know what had happened to everyone else and this book delivered. The kids story of trying to get to the bottom of what really happened was riveting and tied up the story that began in Alone nicely.

Thank you to NetGalley, Aladdin Publishing, and the author, Megan E. Freeman, for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I read Alone with my niece for a school project. We both really enjoyed it. So when I saw there was a companion novel coming out, I was excited to read it. If you have read Alone, where Maddie was left to survive on her own, then you have probably wondered what happened to those whom were evacuated.

Away is told from four different perspectives each with a unique writing style. You have Ashanti, Teddy, Grandin, and Harmony. After enduring forced government evacuations to an old military site, the four become friends. They come together and begin questioning what the government has told them about the mandatory evacuations. Is there really a toxic contamination taking place? Are the guards keeping others out? Or stopping them from leaving? Should you blindly trust the government to look out for your best interest?

This is a quick easy read and answers a lot of question from Alone. I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed this book. I thought the format of using a student journalist and a filmmaker was unique and an interesting way to tell the story.

I read "Alone" a few weeks ago and I was ecstatic to hear that Megan Freeman wrote a companion novel. This was very well written and I loved the transitions between verse and the screen write format. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as "Alone"; I went into this novel with erroneous expectations. I knew it was about kids who successfully evacuated versus the other novel centered on survival, but I was still expecting the plot to move a bit quicker.

After the fantastic book Alone, by Megan E. Freeman, I was thrilled to read the sequel! I found the various points of view to be fast-paced, similar to the pacing in Alone. I didn't like the references to stage cues or camera shots that were sometimes used, as I found these distracting. I think as adults we may have to suspend our disbelief as to the reason why there was an evacuation and how it was carried out.

For young readers, this has a fantastic payoff, and an interesting mystery that unfolds. I also liked the window it provides into what life may be like for a refugee who has had to leave everything behind and take only the clothes on their back. This also reminded me of internment camps, and I think readers will come away with a new understanding of government overreach.