On a settled off-Earth planet, the colony of Harmony is inhabited by the followers of Truesight. This philosophy requires blindness--children are born blind, and occasional recruits choose to be blinded.

In the colony, a system of sounders and pathfinders enable everyone to walk about and do their daily business. Fieldworkers manage crops, music is valued, school ends at age 13 when a profession is chosen. Without sight, community members are not distracted by the unimportant and physical.

"Seers" are considered to be bad and weak, but they do bring in deliveries (especially when harvests are bad), and maintain the community's machinery.

Jacob, 12, lives with his parents. He is nervous about what his vocation will be. He is worried about his mother's music student Delaney.

And soon he will have to make his own choice.

An very easy read, this is a true middle grade book. ( )

A colony planet where everyone is blind due to medical procedure, genetic whatever manipulation. The society is cultish. This is about a kid growing up in that community who rather suddenly gains the ability to see. He angsts about this and eventually it gets him into trouble.It's an interesting book and an okay read. It suffers a little for being part of a trilogy.One quibble I had with it is that once genetic modification became really popular and people were making super-awesome, designer kids, the supposedly _first_ group with a 'disability' who wanted to make kids that way were a blind couple? I just don't see that happening. I think the Deaf would be the first ones to take that route. They have a shared language which defines much more of a culture and community.The largest problem though is that somewhere around the middle, and definitely toward the end, I saw blindness and seeing as a big old metaphor. This kid can now see, so he starts to 'see' the corruption and lies and the not-so-pretty aspects of his community. Which you can take as a larger view that he becomes a teenager on his way to being an adult. And I just wonder, did he really need to be able to literally see to realize all these things?So the book and the idea started out cool, but then, to me, got undermined by the end of the book. ( )

Read "The Giver", by Lois Lowry, a much better book. Truesight has a very similar plot, but not as well executed. The author creates a society where blindness is thought to create a deeper spiritual life, and sight creates a shallow person. When a boy regrows his sight at 13, he sees the hypocrisy of his world and how it goes against what his community teaches. A few interesting themes appear: If you can't see the corruption around you, is it really happening? and is your society truly simple if you have to heavily depend on technology to keep you safe? I also find it interesting that this community was founded by people who have never seen, rather than people who have chosen to give up sight. ( )

I liked this book. It something that i have never seen written before, It was interesting to see how the story developed ( )