The House of the Scorpion

By: Nancy Farmer

Narrated by: Raul Esparza

National Book Award, Young People's Literature, 2002

Matt is a clone of El Patrón, 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 Patrón's empire consider him a "beast" and an "eejit".

When El Patrón dies at the age of 146, 14-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.

©2004 Nancy Farmer (P)2008 Simon and Schuster

Incredibly imaginative

If you could sum up The House of the Scorpion in three words, what would they be?

Creative Futuristic

Which scene was your favorite?

The scene where the boys were thrown into the bone pit was so well described that I felt I was there with them. I was holding my breath during the entire scene.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I couldn't put the book down. Unlike most books, there was no way of knowing where the story was going next. From the very beginning, the reader is being pulled along wondering what is going on and where is it leading.

Any additional comments?

Nancy Farmer has an incredible imagination, and I look forward to reading more of her books.

Must read

Love it! The story is really engaging. I wish they can make it a TV series.

LOVE IT

love it so much so i can wait to read one more time and voice actor did a good job in emotional acting.so the main character's emotions were delivered well to the reader.

Great Story of Teens

What made the experience of listening to The House of the Scorpion the most enjoyable?

I used this recording to accompany the book with students. It added a lot drama and interest having an actor read the book.

Any additional comments?

The audio book is not separated by chapters but by sections which is a HUGE problem when you try to start and stop the book for multiple classes.

Intresting

I loved it the book had so much excitement it was like a life book.

Love this

The ending just made me want to continue the book series I fell in love with Matt’s story

5 stars!

Amazing narration and a story that hooked me in the story this is a must read book.

House of the Scorpion-Excellent Read!

My students loved listening to this audiobook as they followed along. Narrator does an excellent job or reading with prosody.

loved it

loved it it was a great story. I'm speechless. I just cant get over how great it was! Wow.

Childhood Favorite

Alright. I'm gonna say it.

LISTEN TO THIS BOOK!

Raul Esparza is the best choice for this novel. The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer is set at least one hundred years into the future in a country called Opium. A drug lord named Matteo Alacrán long ago made a proposition to the United States of America—make a strip of land dividing America and Mexico, and he’d make sure that illegal immigrants would not pass. Alacrán would grow drugs, sell drugs to foreign countries, and America wouldn’t touch him so long as he didn’t sell in America. But that was more than a hundred years prior, and Matteo Alacrán is now El Patrón, a very old and very wealthy tyrant. Our focus is now on the drug lord’s clone, Matt.

Matt is a clone, legally considered to be livestock. He does not understand why others treat him less than a dog, despite his high intelligence and his affinity for creating delicate music. Matt survives being tossed into chicken litter for six months, breaks free from his inability to speak after the horror of being thought of as an animal, and deals with the constant torrent of negativity with the house occupants. However, with the help of his friends, Celia, Tam Lin, and María, Matt is able to conquer his confusion and fear of the future, and break free from the dragon’s grasp of El Patrón.