Turnabout by Margaret Peterson Haddix

From the Publisher

In the year 2000 Melly and Anny Beth were old and ready to die. But when offered the chance to be young again by participating in a top-secret experiment called Project Turnabout, they agreed. They received injections that made them grow younger, and it seemed like a miracle. But when the injections that were supposed to stop the unaging process turned out to be deadly, Melly and Anny Beth decided to run for their lives.

Now it is 2085. Melly and Anny Beth are teenagers. They have no idea what will happen once they are babies again, but they do know they will soon be too young to take care of themselves. They need to find someone to help them before time runs out, once and for all....

Publishers Weekly

At age 100, Melly and the other Riverside nursing home residents are injected with a drug to make them "unage" yet find that they cannot stop the process. "Haddix successfully shuttles readers between three different eras and builds up to a surprising final face-off," said PW. Ages 10-14. (May) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

In her thought-provoking science fiction adventure, Haddix (Just Ella) successfully shuttles readers between three different eras, convincingly covering the extensive life of Amelia (Melly) Hazelwood. At age 100, Melly and other Riverside nursing home residents were injected with the experimental drug PT-1 The drug was supposed to make them "unage" until they reached a self-determined ideal age, at which point they would get another shot to stop the process. The second shot, however, proved deadly, and the participants of Project Turnabout were doomed to unage until they reached zero. Now teenagers, Melly and her stubborn sidekick Anny Beth need to find parents who can care for them in their approaching infancy. But when a snooping reporter begins to track Melly, the pair must put their search on hold and flee. Haddix handles this complex plot with ease, beginning the various entries either just after 2000 or in 2085 (with flashbacks in between). Readers will likely enjoy Haddix's predictions for the future (Perfect Toothpaste replaces dentists and cars drive themselves). The reporter's transformation from hard-nosed to maternal seems a bit sudden, but Haddix keeps the pacing smooth and builds up to a surprising final face-off. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Children's Literature

Like Tuck Everlasting but without the poetry, this futuristic novel imagines the consequences of living a longerthannormal lifespan. In 2001, nursing home inhabitants Melly and Anny Beth participate in Project Turnabout. Given a drug to reverse aging, they have proceeded to age backward for nearly 85 years. Now, in 2085, they have discovered that they can't stop the deaging process and so the nowteenagers must search for someone to act as a parent when they inevitably hit single digits. Added to this, while they have kept their existence a secret, someone is trying to track them down via computer and the two girls must flee to save their identity from discovery. Told in alternating chapters moving either forward or backward, the story appeals more to intellect than to emotion as Haddix plays with the notion that these energetic teenagers nonetheless remember much of their previous two centuries so their actions seem more deliberate and their conversation sounds "older". Themes worthy of discussion include, of course, whether one would want to live a longer lifespan, whether the government has a right or responsibility to prohibit genetic manipulation, whether memory is a help or a hindrance, and the nature of friendship and love. As in other futuristic novels, this one imagines universal health care but with a BigBrother price to pay, a near cashless economy, and nature preserves that one needs permits to visit, and readers may speculate on how society could get there from present day. A lively author's note details the science upon which the deaging premise rests. Haddix enjoys a strong reputation among middle schoolers with her book, Running Out of Time, and this novel, while not assatisfying a read, will surely attract their attention, as well. 2000, Simon & Schuster, Ages 12 to 16, $17.00. Reviewer: Susan Hepler

VOYA

This futuristic novel, which addresses the repercussions of a medically produced "fountain of youth," will grab the reader's attention on page one. Haddix draws the reader in with Amelia (Melly) Hazelwood, who turns sixteen on April 21, 2085. Not a typical teenager, she actually is an old woman who becomes physically younger each day. Melly's story actually began eighty-five years earlier when someone asked one hundred-year-old Melly, "Do you want to be younger?" Melly was sure that her signature on the document was not binding—after all, she was practically dead. Shortly after, however, Amelia and many other nursing home residents, including the outspoken Anny Beth, unknowingly become part of Project Turnabout, an unauthorized medical experiment to make them young again. Unlike many of the others, Melly and Anny Beth were determined to live their reverse life better than they had their first. Now teenagers, they know that soon they will not be able to care for themselves and that they must find an adult to look after them as they un-age. Returning to Kentucky where Melly grew up, they find A. J. Hazelwood, the "mother" who will help her ancestors un-age to their births, not knowing what will happen when that moment arrives. Haddix has crafted a thought-provoking tale that raises medical ethics questions while deftly weaving together an unforgettable story of two feisty, twenty-first century friends, who plan to live their second life to the fullest, right back to their birth. Even the novice science fiction reader will be wrapped up in the story as they relate to Melly's frustration with the changes occurring in her body, which she cannot control. VOYA CODES: 5Q 4P M J S (Hardto imagine it being any better written; Broad general YA appeal; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2000, Simon & Schuster, 223p, $17. Ages 12 to 18. Reviewer: Ruth Cox

SOURCE: VOYA, October 2000 (Vol. 23, No. 4)

KLIATT

To quote KLIATT's Nov. 2000 review of the hardcover edition: In the year 2000, two feisty elderly women are among the nursing home residents selected to be in a scientific experiment called Project Turnabout. Melly and Anny Beth receive an injection that miraculously reverses the aging process...Meanwhile, frighteningly, their old memories are gradually being lost. Melly and Anny Beth leave the scientific academy that is conducting this dangerous and illegal experiment and stay together to help each other out as they experience a second chance at life, meanwhile getting younger all the time and trying to evade those who become suspicious of them. Now, in the year 2085, they're physiologically teenagers, and are still continuing to grow younger. Who will look after them when they grow too young to take care of themselves? And why is a reporter trying to track Melly down? They return to their home state of Kentucky where they find the answers to these questions, meanwhile pondering the moral issues raised by scientific experimentation and by the prospect of immortality. This is a fast moving and thought-provoking read by the author of Just Ella and other YA novels. Melly and Anny Beth are enterprising and sympathetic heroines, and Haddix's near-future world, with almost no privacy left, is credible. An author's note at the end discusses some of the scientific research on reversing the aging process. Category: Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror. KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2000, Simon & Schuster, Aladdin, 232p., $5.99. Ages 13 to 18. Reviewer: Paula Rohrlick; KLIATT SOURCE: KLIATT, March 2002 (Vol. 36, No. 2)

KLIATT

To quote the review of the hardcover in KLIATT, November 2000: In the year 2000, two feisty elderly women are among the nursing home residents selected to be in a scientific experiment called Project Turnabout. Melly and Anny Beth receive an injection that miraculously reverses the aging process. A second injection is supposed to halt the process—but it proves fatal when it is attempted. Meanwhile, frighteningly, their old memories are gradually being lost. Melly and Anny Beth leave the scientific academy that is conducting this dangerous and illegal experiment and stay together to help each other out as they experience a second chance at life, meanwhile getting younger all the time and trying to evade those who become suspicious of them. Now, in the year 2085, they're physiologically teenagers, and are still continuing to grow younger. Who will look after them when they grow too young to take care of themselves? And why is a reporter trying to track Melly down? They return to their home state of Kentucky where they find the answers to these questions, meanwhile pondering the moral issues raised by scientific experimentation and by the prospect of immortality. This is a fast-moving and thought-provoking read by the author of Just Ella and other YA novels. Melly and Anny Beth are enterprising and sympathetic heroines, and Haddix's near-future world, with almost no privacy left, is credible. An author's note at the end discusses some of the scientific research on reversing the aging process.

School Library Journal

Gr 6-10-Eighty-five years ago, Melly and Anny Beth were old women participating in a highly secret research study that reversed the aging process. However, the directors of Project Turnabout couldn't halt the reversal, and the women have "unaged" back into teenagers. Soon they will become so young that they will no longer care for themselves. Even worse, a reporter's interest in Melly is threatening to destroy the privacy that the teens alone still value in the publicity-mad culture of the year 2085. The suspense is unflagging as the two flee from unwanted exposure and search for a way to live out the rest of their days. The futuristic setting, including the consensual media circus of daily life, is scarily believable. The girls are well drawn, distinct characters, their teenaged selves logical extensions of their adult personas with one important difference: Melly and Anny Beth have learned from the mistakes of their "first lives" and accomplished more the second time around. The novel ends with the suggestion that longer life might be a blessing, an unusual perspective in science fiction and fantasy for young people, where extreme longevity is often depicted as a burden. Recommend this one to fans of Michael Crichton and Robin Cook, or pair it with Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting (Farrar, 1975) for a thoughtful discussion about human life and human potential.-Beth Wright, Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, VT Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Kirkus Reviews

In this intriguing, thought-provoking, and certainly original novel, Amelia Lenore Hazelwood is 100 years old and living in a nursing home where the only thing she has to look forward to is death. Everything changes though when 50 of the nursing-home residents are selected to participate in a top-secret "unaging" experiment, labeled Project Turnabout. Using a special chemical, the old people will become younger and younger until they take a drug that will stop the de-aging process—then they will forever be that age. But there's been a problem, and the drug designed to stop the process doesn't work. Now Amelia and the others face de-aging until infancy and then, presumably, death. The story, told by Amelia as the process begins in the year 2000 and also as a 16-year-old (now nicknamed "Melly") in 2085, follows Melly and her best friend Anny Beth's attempts to find someone to take care of them as they revert to childhood and babyhood. The two friends run away to Amelia's childhood home which, surprisingly, still stands and is inhabited by Melly's great-great-great granddaughter, A.J. Hazelwood. Ironically, A.J., a reporter, has been researching Amelia's life. Melly decides that A.J. is the best candidate to be her surrogate mother and they form a highly unusual family. As in some of her other work, Haddix (Among the Hidden, 1998, etc.) examines the role of an outsider navigating her way through an unfamiliar culture. She gets in a few good digs at some of the less savory aspects of American popular culture that only get worse as her fictional 21st century progresses. " ‘Why is it,' Anny Beth asks as the two watch TV, ‘thatwitheverything else that's improved in the last eighty years, TV news still stinks?' " The book raises philosophical questions that young-adult readers will sink their teeth into about the desirability of living longer lives than we do today, of the role of old people in our society, and about the ethics of medical experimentation. A fascinating concept engrossingly told. (Fiction. 11-16)

Product Details

• Read an Excerpt

Read an Excerpt

April 21, 2085

My sixteenth birthday. Sad, sad day. What I mind most -- what I've been dreading most -- is losing my license. I could still pass for being older for at least another year or two, but the agency won't let me. Against the rules, they say. We know best, they say. How can they be so sure when this is all new territory?

At least Anny Beth can still drive, since she's only eighteen. I don't know what I'd do without Anny Beth. I don't know what we'll do when she hits sixteen. And beyond that...

The agency lady called this morning to make sure I was ready for her annual visit. She said, "You still seem to be holding up."

I said, "I don't like the other choices."

She didn't laugh, the way I meant her to.

I told her my Memory Book was done, and she said, "It's not easy, is it?"

How do you answer a question like that?

My body feels good. Healthy. Teeming with life and possibility. I remember this feeling from the last time. I had such hope for the future then.

It's not the same when my body feels hopeful and my mind knows that the future is only sixteen more years of loss.

April 21, 2085

Melly and Anny Beth went out dancing to celebrate Melly's birthday. They hardly needed any excuse for dancing anymore. It was like some rhythm sang in their bones all the time, secretly urging, "Dance. Run. Move. Get going!" Melly went jogging every morning now, and Anny Beth did aerobics three or four nights a week, but somehow that wasn't enough. They'd talked about it; neither one of them remembered the dancing urge being quite so powerful the first time.

"But there were always chores then," Melly had said. "All those bucketsof water I had to lug up the hill...all the grain we thrashed by hand...I used to fall into bed too worn out even to sleep."

"Not me," Anny Beth had said, with her usual ornery grin. "I always had energy at night."

Melly had playfully slugged her.

They were acting more like kids now. Melly knew that. She thought about Ms. Simmons's pursed lips and knew how she'd view Melly and Anny Beth's behavior. But what was she going to say -- "Act your age"? Which age?

They stepped into the dance club now, their silver boots gleaming in the strobe lights. The crowd in front of them was a blur of tie-dye, neon polyester, and smiley-face prints. Melly figured that this was about the fifth time in her life that the fashions of the 1970s were "in." What was so enduring about all those psychedelic daisies that they kept coming back? This time, though, the look always had to be paired with what Anny Beth called "futuristic Reynolds Wrap." No one else in the dance club remembered foil, of course, since aluminum had been mined out years ago. Melly caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored walls. With her short, fitted silver dress and glittery eye shadow and multi-colored hair, she looked just like a "Predictions of the Future" fashion display she'd seen several decades ago. Had the fashion futurists been so wise that they knew what was coming, or had these fashions come into style simply because that was what people predicted? Were all successful prophecies self-fulfilling?

Melly thought about sharing her musings with Anny Beth, but decided against it. "What are you doing, thinking again?" Anny Beth would say. "It's your birthday. We're at a club. Dance."

It was too loud to talk anyhow. Melly threw herself into the music, jerking her limbs alongside dozens of other anonymous bodies.

Hours later Anny Beth leaned over and shouted in Melly's ear. " -- eat?" was all Melly caught. Melly nodded. They went to a restaurant next door and ordered the largest platters of burgers and fries available. Melly's ears were still ringing when their food arrived.

"If I really were a teenager with decades ahead of me, I would not be ruining my ears like that," Melly said. "I can't believe what those kids do."

"Oh, don't be such an old lady," Anny Beth said. "Irresponsibility is what adolescence is all about."

Melly snorted. "Which psychology book did you read that one in?"

That had been one of their latest projects, reading about adolescence so that they could blend in better. They'd mostly found the books hilarious, as if describing a species of animal they'd never encountered. Each of them had been a teenager before, each of them had raised teenagers -- but they'd never seen anyone act like the books said all teenagers behaved.

Anny Beth paused to smile suggestively at a guy a few booths away. He smiled back but didn't approach. Melly wondered how she and Anny Beth could look and act so much like typical teenagers, but still give off such forbidding vibes.

A camera crew walked up the aisle and stopped beside the guy Anny Beth had smiled at. "And now," one of the men in the crew said dramatically into a microphone, "more about Peter's life! We'll follow him all night long! See every second of his existence!"

Peter beamed into the camera.

Anny Beth rolled her eyes. "Just another publicity hound."

Melly counted the other camera crews in the restaurant -- there were ten in sight, and probably at least that many out of her view.

"Isn't everyone a publicity hound now?" Melly asked.

"No," Anny Beth said. "Not you and me."

Melly shook her head and tried to remember when she had first noticed people becoming such exhibitionists. She'd heard of people having their own Web sites back in the early years of the twenty-first century, where they kept cameras trained on themselves twenty-four hours a day. But that had been a rare occurrence; back then, even celebrities had tried to avoid the cameras sometimes. Nowadays everyone seemed to want to reveal everything about themselves to the entire world, and modern technology had practically made that possible. It made no sense to Melly, because the extreme exposure often got people in trouble. The police had only to scroll the public-access video sites to catch criminals; divorce courts never had to prove adultery, because it was always on tape. Melly shivered thinking about what her and Anny Beth's lives would be like if their secret were ever exposed. They'd never have a moment's peace.

Anny Beth lost interest in the camera crew. "So," she said. "It's your birthday. Sweet sixteen and never been kissed."

It was an old-fashioned saying, one Melly hadn't heard in years. Unbidden, tears sprang to her eyes as she remembered all the kisses she'd be forgetting now. She and Roy had started dating when she was fifteen. They'd exchanged their first shy kisses under the apple tree on Roy's father's farm the day he proposed....

"Don't do that," Anny Beth pleaded. "I'm sorry. I can't take you getting mushy on me."

Melly brushed the tears away and grimaced. "Do you ever regret not volunteering for the Cure?" she asked.

"You mean, do I wish I were dead? Of course not."

"Maybe it would have worked for us -- "

Anny Beth made a face. "I doubt it. And it wasn't worth the risk to find out. Is this birthday getting to you? Remember -- you've got a lot of good life ahead of you. At least, I do, and I want you to keep me company in it."

Melly couldn't help smiling at Anny Beth's mocking selfishness. But she couldn't match Anny Beth's banter. "Maybe the agency's right," she said.

"Them? Never," Anny Beth said reflexively. She took a huge bite of hamburger, sucking in a dangling strand of onion like someone reeling in a fishing line.

"No, really," Melly said. "What are we going to do when -- you know. When you can't drive anymore. When we get too short to reach the top cabinets in the kitchen. When we forget how to tie our shoes. When I'm back in diapers -- " She was whispering now, partly because she didn't want anyone to overhear, and partly because the tears were threatening to come back.

"First of all, start taking the bus," Anny Beth said, chewing on the onion. "Use the step stool. Wear Velcro shoes."

"And the other?" Melly spoke so softly she knew Anny Beth couldn't hear her. But Anny Beth knew what she meant.

"That's years away. You were potty trained pretty young, weren't you?"

Melly grimaced and didn't answer.

Anny Beth placed her hamburger down on her plate with unusual care. "Look, I know it's not going to be easy. But it's not worth ruining our lives now with fretting. We'll worry about that when the time comes. We'll think of something. I assure you, I have no intention of going back to any sort of institution. I lost too much of the other end of my life in one of them places."

Melly always knew Anny Beth was totally serious when she slipped back into bad grammar. It was sort of comforting. But Melly refused to be comforted. "Fine," she said. "You fiddle while Rome burns. I'm going to find someone to take care of us."

"Tonight?" Anny Beth asked.

"Soon," Melly said. She hated it when Anny Beth deflated her grand pronouncements.

"Shouldn't it be 'fiddle while Rome unburns'?" Anny Beth asked. "Because that's pretty much what we're doing. Ever watch a fire video on rewind? It's really awesome to see a house put itself back together...."

Melly let Anny Beth's chatter envelop her like a cocoon. Anny Beth was probably right -- she should just enjoy herself tonight. But tomorrow -- she'd start her search tomorrow.

Copyright © 2000 by Margaret Peterson Haddix