The Girl Who Owned a City

The Girl Who Owned a City is a novel by O.T Nelson, first published in 1975. This book, sometimes taught in schools, is considered to be best suited for those between the ages of 10 and 14 (depending on reading ability). This is a post-apocalyptic book about leadership and survival. Nelson has stated that his intent in writing the novel was to translate the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand into terms children could understand.

Synopsis

A deadly virus has swept the world, killing off everyone over the age of twelve in the span of a month or so. In suburban Chicago, ten-year-old Lisa Nelson and her younger brother Todd are surviving, like all the children in the story, by looting abandoned houses and shops. Although there are abandoned cars in every driveway and lining every street, Lisa is the first child to think of driving one. She is also the first to think of raiding a farm, and the first to look at the dwindling supplies in stores and deduce that groceries come from warehouses. She finds a supermarket warehouse and raids it, enlisting the help of a neighbor boy her own age, but makes clear to him that the entire warehouse and all its contents are her exclusive property, not to be shared unless she chooses.

She considers relocating to the farm, but decides against it because it is difficult to defend (other children are starting to form gangs) and because "planning and getting the world back to the way it was, with schools, and hospitals, and electricity" are much more "exciting" than "hiding away on a farm ... digging in the dirt all day".

Lisa and her friends are approached by the "Chidester Avenue Gang", led by Tom Logan. Suspecting that Lisa has a source of supplies, Logan offers a food-for-protection deal, which Lisa declines. Unhesitatingly taking charge, she forms her block-long stretch of Grand Avenue into a militia, armed with guns, Molotov cocktails, and primitive weapons. When the militia proves unsuccessful at defending the "Land of Grandville" against "the fearful and cruel army of Chidester and Elm" Lisa comes up with the idea of moving the "child-families" -- and the entire contents of the warehouse -- into the local high school, and transforming it into a fortress-city. Within the city Lisa is the only authority, by virtue of the fact that she saw the abandoned high school, and thought of moving there, and thus has earned her sole title to the "City of Glenbard" and everything in it.

Things proceed according to plan until Tom Logan and his gang manage to stage a successful attack on Glenbard, during which Lisa is shot in the arm. Todd and Lisa's friend Jill rescue her, and Jill performs basic surgery to remove the bullet from her arm. When Lisa recovers they retake the city of Glenbard from Tom, who has meanwhile learned that conqueror and leader are two very different things. In short Tom Logan was overthrown easily by Lisa. Lisa takes charge and everyone is happy.

Real-life connections

The book includes several elements related to the author's real life.

• The story takes place in the Chicago suburb of Glen Ellyn, Illinois where Nelson lived at the time the book was written.
• The two main characters are named for the author's children, Todd and Lisa Nelson.
• Grand Avenue does in fact exist in Glen Ellyn, and a careful examination of the text and of a map of Glen Ellyn reveals that the "Chidester Avenue Gang" would have been based only a block away.

Origins of the book

In 1960, author O.T. Nelson started a small house-painting company which he called "College Craft Painters." By 1972, College Craft was operating in four states and employed many college students as summer house-painters, but the company was in need of money to expand as well as to cover its full-time employees during seasonal lulls in work. The Girl Who Owned a City was written for this purpose.