This is book 1 of the "Emergence" series.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

I haven't been in the habit of rereading this as often as a lot of things that I like this much and in this way.

This remains one of the very few things that is in some significant ways "like" Heinlein juveniles; it has a precocious child as a protagonist, first-person in fact, and they come to adulthood during the book.

It also hits the emerging super-race button, rather as Wilmar Shiras' "In Hiding" does.

Now a little dated—published in 1984, when the Space Shuttle was really cool instead of a dead relic, and before cell phones. And I do think she ignores radio too much when looking for other people, and ignores firearms way too much. Especially since she does bring an arsenal that her father's shelter was equipped with along.

But I'm not nearly as sure as she is that an M-16 (yes, her father had access to the full-auto version) would stop a rhino. She's small, but not timid and very very fit, and very very smart, so she would be fine shooting a few shots from a big rifle, and if it bruised her shoulder even with proper technique so what? She appears to explain that a big rifle would physically knock her over, which is nonsense (and a common error among non-shooting people).