Tony V is an excavator in a future dystopia. While digging through ruins, he discovers the diary of Pelly D, a girl who must have lived near that spot years before. Her writing offers an explanation of how the world has come to the point it is at, leading Tony to question much of what he has been taught to believe. Wealthy and popular, Pelly was everything Tony is not. But when a required gene test was given to all citizens, Pelly was discovered to have been part of a lower-class line of ancestry, which changes her position in life dramatically. Adlington offers details about Tony’s reality in increments that parallel the pace at which Tony discovers things about Pelly’s world. While this reverse world-building is disconcerting at first, science fiction fans will appreciate the way it creates a kind of urgency, and how they must hunt for clues to explain strange things like Tony’s gills. As it becomes more and more clear that Pelly’s fall was due to racism and classism in a culture not altogether unlike our own, The Diary of Pelly D begs the question of whether our own society is on a path toward Pelly D’s reality, or, worse, Tony’s. (Ages 12–15)

In a postapocalyptic city on a colonized planet, fourteen-year-old Toni V works with a demolition crew to remove rubble in preparation for rebuilding City Five. When his drill strikes a sealed and battered water can, he discov ers a package containing the diary of Pelly D, a flirtatious teen of privilege, beauty, and a compelling way of relating her life. Because scavenging is forbidden, Tony V reads the diary in stolen snatches of time after his days of backbreaking labor. As the diary unfolds, Pelly D’s blithe acceptance of her life collapses when a mandated genetic profiling system determines her family to be of Galrezi heritage, the lowest clan. Adlington’s dystopian world, with its class system, power, and genocide, will open to discussions of state-sponsored oppression and resistance. 2006 USBBY-CBC Outstand ing International Books List, 2006 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults, 2006 CCBC Best-of-the-Year List. nlr

Originally published by Hodder Children’s Books Great Britain, in 2005.

Toni V is a teenager working for the City Five demolition crew. While drilling through concrete he unearths a battered water can containing a parcel wrapped in faded brown paper. Though he's supposed to turn over anything he salvages, Toni V smuggles the package back to his room, unwraps it, and finds a notebook.

This is the diary of Pelly D. It's totally secret, so if you're reading it I hate you already.

Toni V figures there's no harm in paging through it since he doesn't even know this Pelly D.

I'm not being arrogant. That's just the way it is at school. . . . I'm Pelly D. It's pretty simple. I RULE!

The more Toni V reads, the more he thinks Pelly D is rich, stupid, and petty. Yet he can't help starting to care for her, especially as her words slowly reveal the chilling state of her world.

I know it doesn't matter what gene tag you have -- Mum's made that clear again & again like a stuck CD. It's just . . . How can I face everyone at school if . . .

What happened to Pelly D? Toni V needs to know. And he has one clue:

Dig -- dig everywhere.