It’s Been Twenty-Five Years: Thoughts on Erin Entrada Kelly’s The First State of Being, a guest post by Susan Uhlig

In 1999, almost everyone was worried about a computer flaw or bug nicknamed Y2K for year 2000. Why? Computers weren’t set up for anything but a two-digit calendar date. What was going to happen when calendars changed over from 1999 to 2000? Some people thought the world was going to end. Others were concerned that banking and computers would fail. There were worries it could affect transportation and power plants. A hundred billion US dollars were spent to fix the problem. Worldwide estimates are 300 billion. The “Millenium Bug” was in the news; books were written; and people were scared. Some even hoarded food and other supplies.

What actually happened were minor errors. Here are some common ones from around the world: some bills were sent with due dates of 1900 instead of 2000, and at midnight 12/31/99 some cash registers and taxi meters wouldn’t work. My favorite is several late fees for books and videos over 100 years overdue were generated. But for most of us it was a nonevent. (The Museum of American History has an article if you’d like more information.)

Now Erin Entrada Kelly has put the subject in a middle grade novel, The First State of Being (Greenwillow Books, 2024). The story is a fun mix of historical fiction—Y2K—and time travel. The book came out in March.

Here’s a brief description of the book: It’s 1999 and 11-year-old Michael Rosario is hoarding food that he’s stolen for when the world shuts down on January 1, 2000. (He has to help his single Mom who is struggling with three jobs to make ends meet. And she loves peaches, right?) And then he and Mr. Mosley, the apartment maintenance man, meet a weird teenager, who appears to be half Filipino like Michael. Ridge doesn’t even know what year it is and is dressed oddly. Something’s off about that kid. Despite all of Michael’s worries, he and his babysitter Gibby decide to help Ridge obtain his desire of going to a mall.

We also get sections from the future, see bullying problems, and experience the pangs of infatuation, and grief and loss along with the main character. This is a story of hope and has great reminders of deciding how we want to be.

At the beginning I was a bit confused at who was who , but it became clear as I kept reading.

There are great lines in this book—here are some of my favorites:
“The seed of resentment in his stomach had cracked open, sprouted bitter branches.”
“Before you go to sleep at night, ask yourself: was I the best person I could be today? If the answer is no, do better tomorrow.”
“Right here, right now. It’s the best place to be.”
“It was strange, the way a space could change and be the same all at once.”

One last thing to like about this book:
Michael and Gibby feed the stray cats that hang around the apartment even though they aren’t supposed to. (Awww!)

The publisher has also prepared an Educator’s Guide.  You can get the pdf here.

About Erin Entrada Kelly

Erin is a Filipina American author. She’s a Newbery medalist and a NY Times bestseller. You can see all her awards here. And, yes, she was a young adult in 1999/2000 so experience Y2K at first hand. Here’s an interview with her before this book came out: “Publishers’ Preview: Books in the Middle: Five Questions for Erin Entrada Kelly” from HarperCollins. She’s also on the Hamline University faculty for their MFA in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults.

Read more about Erin here where you’ll see her favorite word is “peculiar” and her favorite place is the library. She even likes to write there.  Erin has published eight middle grade novels and a three book series for independent readers ages seven to nine about a character named Marisol Rainey. She also has contributions in three collections from diverse authors. Check out all her books here. And definitely read her Newbery winner, Hello, Universe and her Newbery honor book, We Dream of Space! You may also want to take a peek at her notebook. She writes the first draft of all of her books by hand.

Erin will be talking about The First State of Being at a Bookelicious Middle Grade Club book webinar via Zoom on May 7^th. Register here.

And, in spring of 2025, you can read her YA-debut romcom written with Kwame Mabalia. It’s called, On Again, Awkward Again, and was sold to Amulet in a two-book deal.

I love this quote from her 2018 Newbery medal acceptance speech, “My greatest wish as a writer is that the person reading my book—or any book, for that matter—feels less alone.”

Meet the author

Susan Uhlig is a children’s author and blogger who loves sharing all the good kidlit books she reads at susanuhlig.com. Here’s her cat Luna who judges Sue for spending too much time at the computer. But Luna does approve of book reading as it leaves a lap open for her.

Filed under: Guest Post