Feed by M.T. Anderson

Book Info
Feed by M.T. Anderson
©2002 Candlewick Press, Cambridge, MA
ISBN 978-0763617264

Plot Summary
In a future America, commercialism has been taken to new heights with the introduction of “feeds.” Hardwired into the brain, the feed is a constant stream of information, advertising, news, and the latest in fashion and events. For teens like Titus and his friends, feeds are essential for discovering where to party and what’s hot to wear. After a party on the moon (which apparently sucks), Titus meets the intriguing Violet. Unlike Titus and his friends who love and depend on the feed, Violet challenges it and asks important questions like “why?” But when Violet’s and Titus’ feeds get hacked, she does not recover as he does, likely due to its late installation many years after birth. Due to the feed’s connection to the brain, she begins to deteriorate as well as experience elements of clarity without the feed. Can she and Titus fight the feed and discover its secrets before the deterioration kills her completely?

Reader’s Annotation
Imagine having Twitter and Facebook hardwired directly into your brain, with the added element of nonstop advertising. This endless stream of information is a reality in the world of M.T. Anderson’s Feed. Follow Titus and his friends as they develop from feed-lovers to questioning its very existence and impact on their lives.

Critical Evaluation
Written years before the explosion of websites like Facebook or Twitter, Feed seems eerily prophetic. While it isn’t connected directly to our brains, most of us are glued to these websites through our computers and smart phones to share our thoughts, communicate with friends, find out about the latest party, and be bombarded by sidebar advertising. In Feed, this form of speechless communication was linked directly to the brain, inundating people with information. It is a thought-provoking social commentary that cleverly highlights current trends in society and culture and though it seems to be a slightly exaggerated future, Anderson makes it feel completely plausible and like something that could truly exist in a few years if things continue as they are. For a sense of realism, the feeds in the book use a great amount of teenage slang that was developed by this future generation. With any type of slang, it may be difficult to understand by people not familiar with it, but it adds a sense of being in the heads of the characters right along with them.

Information about the Author
Born November 4, 1968, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Anderson attended St. Mark’s School, Harvard, University of Cambridge, and Syracuse. He worked at Candlewick Press before Thirsty was accepted for publication. Anderson is a former instructor at Vermont College in Montpelier, Vermont, and former music critic for The Improper Bostonian.

Anderson is also a board member of the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance, a national non-profit organization that advocates for literacy, literature, and libraries. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of Vermont College of Fine Arts. After learning Anderson included the Governor’s official mailing address in Jasper Dash and the Flame Pits of Delaware, Governor Jack Markell penned a tongue-in-cheek response, which State Librarian Annie Norman presented to M. T. Anderson in September 2009.

Visit the author’s website.

Genre
Science Fiction, Dystopian, Cyberpunk

Curriculum Ties
Sociology

Booktalking Ideas
Violet received her feed later in life. How does this make her different?

How does the feed compare to things we find in our everyday lives, such as television, Facebook, and Twitter?

Reading Level/ Interest Age
15+

Challenge Issues

• Mild sexuality
• Foul language

Defense options

• Be aware of your library’s collection development policy.
• Be familiar with the material in question, and the context of the questionable content.
• Assert the principles of the ALA Library Bill of Rights, and standards of intellectual freedom.
• Consult online book reviews, and others who have read the book.

Why Included?
This book was recommended by the librarian at a library where I volunteer. I was worried that I had too many books geared towards girls, and wanted to add some more masculine books, and ended up with something smart and thought provoking that would appeal to both genders.

For the Win by Cory Doctorow

Book Info
For the Win by Cory Doctorow
© 2010 Tom Doherty Associates, New York, NY
ISBN 978-0765322166

Plot Summary
People of all ages in countries all over the world band together to fight battles, complete quests and win virtual gold, items and treasure within the confines of virtual worlds in massively multiplayer online games. Each game develops an intricate virtual economy meant for the innocent enjoyment of its players, but as with real money greed and impatience can cause corruption and exploitation within these economies. Brutal sweatshops form in countries such as China and India packed with workers to “farm” virtual gold and special items from games for the purpose of selling them to greedy and impatient players in countries in Europe and the United States for real money.

Matthew Fong is a teenage, gold farming factory worker in China who longs to escape the clutches of Boss Wing to form an operation of his own with his friends, Ping and Lu. Mala, a fifteen year old in rural India with exceptional leadership skills is employed by a corrupt businessman to lead a virtual army. Leonard lives in Southern California, but is fascinated with Chinese culture and even learned to speak Mandarin so that he could communicate with his Chinese guild mates and adopted the name Wei-Dong. All of their stories intertwine as they get involved with a woman who calls herself Big Sister Nor. Nor wants a revolution to essentially unionize this corrupt underbelly of online gaming to gain protection, fair wages and reasonable working conditions for the workers, but the forces she is against won’t go down without a fight often resorting to real life blackmail, physical violence and even murder. With the odds against them, can they change things for the better?

Reader’s Annotation
For thousands in impoverished countries, multiplayer online games aren’t just a cherished pastime, but their source of income in corrupt factories with subhuman working conditions. Can a seemingly unrelated group of game workers be united to improve conditions for game workers everywhere?

Critical Evaluation
After reading Little Brother, I was very eager to check out some of Cory Doctorow’s other literary contributions, and I hate to say it, but I was disappointed in this book. As a former PC gamer of MMORPGs, I thought this book would be right up my alley. The book seemed to be slightly too advanced for people who have no online gaming experience in the terms of throwing around slang and gaming concepts, but also not quite realistic enough for an actual gamer to find the situations always believable. I also found issue with a blatant overuse of the description “waggled his/her chin.” I had no idea what exactly this was supposed to describe and noticed that it was sometimes used up to four times on one page alone. I would still recommend the book to people who are gamers or interested in gaming, assuming that they would be less critical and able to overlook some of the things I took issue with.

Information about the Author
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing (boingboing.net), and a contributor to The Guardian, the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Wired, and many other newspapers, magazines and websites. He was formerly Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties. He is a Visiting Senior Lecturer at Open University (UK) and Scholar in Virtual Residence at the University of Waterloo (Canada); in 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.

He co-founded the open source peer-to-peer software company OpenCola, sold to OpenText, Inc in 2003, and presently serves on the boards and advisory boards of the Participatory Culture Foundation, the MetaBrainz Foundation, Technorati, Inc, the Organization for Transformative Works, Areae, the Annenberg Center for the Study of Online Communities, and Onion Networks, Inc.

On February 3, 2008, he became a father. The little girl is called Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow, and is a marvel that puts all the works of technology and artifice to shame.

From the author’s website.

Genre
Science Fiction

Curriculum Ties
Economics, Labor Unions, International Relations

Booktalking Ideas
What can you learn from a game economy about our country’s economy?

Why do the Webblies want to unionize game workers?

How would your life be different if you were a teenager in China?

Reading Level/ Interest Age
15+

Challenge Issues

• Occasional graphic violence against teenagers.
• Sexual content.

Defense options

• Be aware of your library’s collection development policy.
• Be familiar with the material in question, and the context of the questionable content.
• Assert the principles of the ALA Library Bill of Rights, and standards of intellectual freedom.
• Consult online book reviews, and others who have read the book.
  • Is the violence gratuitous? Is it integral to the power of the story? How graphic/gratuitous is the sexual content?

Why Included?
I was eager to read more from Cory Doctorow after falling in love with his novel Little Brother that was assigned for the class to read.

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Book Info
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
© 2008 Little Brown and Co., New York, NY
ISBN 978-0316036917

Plot Summary
The Earth has been invaded by a parasitic species of alien that invade their human hosts, taking over their mind and body control, but leaving the physical form intact. The alien species call themselves souls and think they are doing humans and the Earth a favor by respecting the planet’s resources and living in peace as humans without wars or conflict. Small bands of non-hosted humans still exist, but must live discretely in hiding.

Melanie Stryder was given to a soul known as “Wanderer,” for her travels and lives lived on other planets as other species, but Melanie refuses to fade away. Melanie and Wanderer initially fight for control of the body, but eventually learn to coexist and even work together. Wanderer develops love for the people that Melanie loves, and together they set out to be reunited with them once again.

Reader’s Annotation
Parasitic aliens invade the Earth and take over the minds and bodies of humans, but some humans don’t give up so easily. Human Melanie Stryder becomes the host of the alien Wanderer, and while they are enemies at first they learn to work together to find the ones they love.

Critical Evaluation
Many complain about the literary value of Meyer’s writing, but after reading Twilight and now The Host, I can safely say that I was able to overlook any literary shortcomings and focus on her story telling. She does have the tendency to overuse certain descriptions, and if it’s one thing that stands out to me in writing, it’s repetition. Characters were often “pressing their lips into a firm line,” and while this is a good and vivid description, after the twelfth time it just becomes redundant and annoying to the reader. The book kept a fairly consistent and reasonable pace, though it might be interpreted as getting overly dramatic at times. Overall, I felt this book possessed a strong and unique concept and the storyline and was sufficiently different from the author’s other major work, the Twilight series.

Information about the Author
Stephenie Meyer was born in Hartford, Connecticut, to Stephen and Candy Morgan. She grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, with five siblings: Seth, Emily, Jacob, Paul, and Heidi. She attended Chaparral High School in Scottsdale, Arizona. She then attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where she received a B.A. in English in 1997. Meyer met her husband Christiaan, nicknamed “Pancho”, when she was growing up in Arizona, and married him in 1994 when they both were 21. Together they have three sons: Gabe, Seth, and Eli. Christiaan Meyer, formerly an auditor, has now retired to take care of the children.

Meyer is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; she has stated that she is strait-laced about her beliefs and does not drink alcohol or smoke. Meyer had never written even a short story before Twilight and had considered going to law school because she felt she had no chance of becoming a writer; she later noted that the birth of her oldest son Gabe changed her mind, saying, “Once I had Gabe, I just wanted to be his mom.” Before becoming an author, Meyer’s only professional work was as a receptionist in a property company.

Meyer currently lives in Cave Creek, Arizona, and also owns a home on Marrowstone Island, Washington.

Visit the author’s website.

Genre
Science Fiction, Fantasy

Curriculum Ties
N/A

Booktalking Ideas
The Souls invade the Earth thinking they are doing it a favor and making it a better place. Discuss your thoughts on this concept.

Wanderer learns to understand and love humans and can’t justify living if it means a human mind has to die, but the humans keep her alive in another body anyway. How do you think she will fare in this situation?

Reading Level/ Interest Age
14+

Challenge Issues
N/A

Why Included?
As a popular young adult author, it didn’t feel right to not include Stephenie Meyer, however I did not want to simply include her most famous work. I have read and enjoyed Twilight, but was curious to see what else she was capable of.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Book Info
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
©2008 Tor Teen, New York, NY
ISBN 978-0765319852

Plot Summary
In a not-so-distant future, Marcus is a seventeen year old high school student in San Francisco, and somewhat of a hacker using the handle “W1n5t0n.” His school implements extensive security measures on their school internet and school provided laptops, and even utilize cameras with gait recognition capabilities to monitor student behavior, but Marcus always finds a way to outsmart the system.

When San Francisco becomes the target of a terrorist attack that destroys the Bay Bridge, many people are killed or go missing, but Marcus and a group of his most tech savvy friends manage to become prime suspects. They are imprisoned by the Department of Homeland Security and heartlessly interrogated for days without contact with one another. When Marcus is finally released, he finds that San Francisco has essentially become a police state, but he’s smart enough to realize that this only incites further fear instead of actually protecting anyone. As a hacker, Marcus made it a point to have a firm understanding of the rights guaranteed to him by his country and realizing that these rights have been diminished, makes it his mission to lead a rebellion to ensure that these rights are restored. Marcus assumes the alias “M1k3y” and fights the good fight for the right to freedom and privacy.

Reader’s Annotation
The United States is often referred to as “The Land of the Free,” but after a vicious terrorist attack on San Francisco freedom is in question. Can a group of tech savvy teens lead a rebellion for basic rights?

Critical Evaluation
Doctorow is impressively good at taking incredibly complex concepts and making them easy to swallow. This book takes very technical things like encryption and basic computer programming and explains them in a creative manner that anyone could understand. Not to mention, many of his examples reflect real hardware and software and might plant a seed in readers to further explore them outside of the book. For example, at one point in the story he mentions PEARL programming language being a very good language for beginners to learn and use, and almost goes so far as to point them in the direction of where to go outside of the book for further information about it. This kind of interaction and connection with the reader is both very clever and unique, and meshes seamlessly into his storytelling.

Information about the Author
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing (boingboing.net), and a contributor to The Guardian, the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Wired, and many other newspapers, magazines and websites. He was formerly Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties. He is a Visiting Senior Lecturer at Open University (UK) and Scholar in Virtual Residence at the University of Waterloo (Canada); in 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.

He co-founded the open source peer-to-peer software company OpenCola, sold to OpenText, Inc in 2003, and presently serves on the boards and advisory boards of the Participatory Culture Foundation, the MetaBrainz Foundation, Technorati, Inc, the Organization for Transformative Works, Areae, the Annenberg Center for the Study of Online Communities, and Onion Networks, Inc.

On February 3, 2008, he became a father. The little girl is called Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow, and is a marvel that puts all the works of technology and artifice to shame.

From the author’s website.

Genre
Science Fiction

Curriculum Ties
Social studies – politics, privacy, freedom, Bill of rights and Declaration of Independence.

Booktalking Ideas
Discuss how you would react to a terrorist attack on your city?

How do you feel about privacy and monitoring by the government? How much of this novel could be true?

Reading Level/ Interest Age
15+

Challenge Issues

• Sexual content.
• Violence/terrorism/torture
• Anti-government and rebellion.

Defense options

• Be aware of your library’s collection development policy.
• Be familiar with the material in question, and the context of the questionable content.
• Assert the principles of the ALA Library Bill of Rights, and standards of intellectual freedom.
• Consult online book reviews, and others who have read the book.
  • This book has strong political themes that might be difficult for some to grasp. Have an understanding of the book’s message and themes to be able to break it down for challengers.

Why Included?
Having been familiar with Cory Doctorow for a while, I have always wanted to read his work but never actually got around to doing so. This book was assigned reading for my Libr-265 class which finally forced me to dive right in and also include it in my blog project.

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

Book Info
Pretties by Scott Westerfeld
© 2006 Scholastic, New York, NY
ISBN 978-0439891615

Plot Summary
Pretties is the second book in Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy. Tally Youngblood has finally undergone the surgery that changes her from an ugly to a stunningly beautiful pretty whose life is easy and fun. Pretties enjoy a life of luxury with daily parties and nearly anything they could ask for at the push of a button. Tally is peacefully ignorant (a condition referred to as pretty-minded) of her former life as an ugly and her relationship with the Smoke, a rebel group that disagrees with the pretty surgery and lives off the grid, until one day when she receives and interesting letter from her former ugly self. Tally remembers that being pretty might not be what it seems and that her reason for undergoing the surgery was to test out a cure that had been developed by doctors from the Smoke to remove the surgery’s effects on the brain. Tally and her pretty boyfriend Zane decide to take the pills together, but can they overcome their pretty minds and defeat the evil government group special circumstances?

Reader’s Annotation
In the second installment of the Uglies trilogy, Tally Youngblood is finally a pretty, but is it really everything it’s cracked up to be? Follow Tally and her pretty boyfriend Zane as they struggle to find out and make things right.

Critical Evaluation
As the second installment of the Uglies series, Pretties picks up right where the first book left off, and as a continuation it deals with the same issues of perceived beauty. I believe Westerfeld intended it to be so, but the pretties are all rather annoying in their vapid existence, and while Tally and her group of friends known as the Crims seem to be somewhat skeptical of their prettiness to begin with, Tally seems to revert back to her ugly mind a little too easily. I enjoyed the first book and still enjoyed reading this one as well, but I found myself to be content to stop here and not finish off the trilogy. I felt I was able to get enough of a grasp on the trilogy to be able to be knowledgeable about it if/when I need to discuss it with patrons or colleagues.

Information about the Author
Westerfeld was born on May 5, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, but as a child, moved to Callifornia and Connecticut for his father, Lloyd’s, job. His mother, Pamela and two older sisters, Wendy and Jackie, rounded out the Westefeld family. It must have been an exciting time, growing up with a father who traveled to new towns to work on the newest types of technology. He had the opportunity to see his dad working with the Apollo missions in Houston, on Boeing planes in California, and on submarines in Connecticut.

Though Westerfeld seemed to live a fairly normal (though not necessarily ordinary) childhood, he received a very prestigious education. He graduated from Arts Magnet High School in Dallas. He then went on to get his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy at Vassar (located in Poughkeepsie, New York) in 1985. WIthout a break, Westefeld went right into his graduate work in Performance Studies at New York University. Throughout his life he has held a number of jobs, ranging from ghost writer, to textbook editor, substitute teacher, factory worker and software designer.

Visit the author’s website.

Genre
Science Fiction

Curriculum Ties
Sociology

Booktalking Ideas
Tally’s group of friends simply pull pranks and participate in other dangerous situations in order to feel bubble, but Shay takes things a step further and actually starts physically hurting herself. Is this taking things too far?

What do you think of Shay’s decision to become a Special? Is there anything Tally could have done to prevent this from happening?

Reading Level/ Interest Age
12+

Challenge Issues

• Reckless behavior and teenage drinking.
• Self mutilation in order to attain a sort of “high” feeling.

Defense options

• Be aware of your library’s collection development policy.
• Be familiar with the material in question, and the context of the questionable content.
• Assert the principles of the ALA Library Bill of Rights, and standards of intellectual freedom.
• Consult online book reviews, and others who have read the book.
  • Understand the context of the reckless behavior of the pretties, and what it is supposed to represent.
  • The self mutilation is an attempt by Shay and her friends to feel normal, and escape being pretty-minded – a plague borne on them by the government.

Why Included?
The Uglies series was highly recommended to me by friends, teenage library patrons and colleagues. While there were aspects of the books that I found to be annoying, I thoroughly enjoyed the overall concept and world created in them.

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow

Book Info
Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow
©2009 Razorbill, New York, NY
ISBN 978-1595145211

Plot Summary
Dru Anderson knows all too well that the world can be a very scary place and by the age of 16 has already taken down an ample amount of dangerous and scary creatures including ghosts, vampires, werewolves and zombies. She grew up traveling from town to town with her dad to kill monsters. Somewhat of an expert in slaying, her father passed on his experience to her, learning to often kill first and ask questions later, but when her father returns from a solo mission as a zombie, Dru is forced to orphan herself and continue the fight alone. Her life was strange but it was happy and good, until one day when a zombie bursts through her kitchen door. The monsters have decided to hunt back, and of course, Dru is at the top of their list. How long can she last?

Reader’s Annotation
For Dru Anderson, things like the boogeyman aren’t just scary stories, monsters are her life, and slaying them is her job. But when the monsters decide to fight back, will she be strong enough to survive?

Critical Evaluation
When I was first suggested this book by a colleague, I was told that the whole series was such a good read that once I opened the first book, I would not be able to stop until I had read them all. While I was unable to read the entire series right away due to the needs of my blog project, I can attest that the prediction was accurate and I will fly through the rest of them as soon as I am able. St. Crow is incredible at keeping things fast paced and packed to the brim with action, keeping you wanting to know what happens next. It’s rare that I find a book that I simply cannot put down, and am always pleased if and when I do. The only major downfall that I found with this book is that the main character can come across as kind of irritating from time to time, but the overall storyline and pacing make it not to difficult to overlook.

Information about the Author
Lilith Saintcrow was born in New Mexico, bounced around the world as an Air Force brat, and fell in love with writing when she was ten years old. Lili lives in Vancouver, WA with her children, a houseful of cats, and assorted other strays.

Also writes under the pseudonym Anna Beguine.

Visit the author’s website.

Genre
Fantasy, Science Fiction, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy

Curriculum Ties
N/A

Booktalking Ideas
When Dru’s father becomes a zombie, she is forced to kill him. Discuss how you would feel if faced with a similar situation.

Discuss the relationship between Dru and Graves.

Reading Level/ Interest Age
15+

Challenge Issues

• Foul language
• Violence
• Sexuality
• Paranormal

Defense options

• Be aware of your library’s collection development policy.
• Be familiar with the material in question, and the context of the questionable content.
• Assert the principles of the ALA Library Bill of Rights, and standards of intellectual freedom.
• Consult online book reviews, and others who have read the book.
  • Feature elements of paranormal, violence and monsters. Compare challenges and defenses for this novel to others like it for ideas.

Why Included?
This series came highly recommended from a colleague, so I decided to use this project as an excuse to check it out.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Book Info
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
© 2007 Simon & Schuster, New York, NY
ISBN 978-1416912040

Plot Summary
America’s second Civil War, the Heartland War, was fought over the issue of abortion between the pro-choice and pro-life. The war finally ended with the implementation of the Bill of Life, serving to appease both factions. This bill stated that all humans are guaranteed life from the moment of conception until the age of 13, at which point a parent may choose to abort the child through the process of “unwinding.” Unwinding is similar to organ donation, but scientific advancements allow every part of the body to be donated so that the unwound child lives on in a “divided state.” Connor discovers his parent’s secret plan to have him unwound due to his anger problems. Risa is an orphan and ward of the state who is scheduled to be unwound due to budget cuts. Lev’s unwinding has been planned since his conception as a religious offering called a tithe. If they can evade capture until their eighteenth birthday, they can no longer be unwound. Their chances for escaping their fates may be minimal, but they have to try.

Reader’s Annotation
Whether they want to or not, Risa, Conner and Lev are all on track to be unwound, a process where their body parts are donated to other living humans who are in need. Can they make it to their eighteenth birthdays to avoid this fate?

Critical Evaluation
I highly enjoyed this book. I found it to be well written and to tackle some rather complex and tough issues such as abortion and suicide bomber terrorists in a unique and intriguing way. I literally couldn’t put it down once I started. The chapters rotate the telling of the story from the different first person viewpoints of the three main characters with events occasionally overlapping so you can see the same situation from another character’s point of view. This was not something I had encountered in literature before, but I found it to be something I really liked since it added complexity to the overall story. The book is action-packed, suspenseful, and extraordinarily thought provoking all at the same time.

Information about the Author
Award-winning author Neal Shusterman grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where he began writing at an early age. After spending his junior and senior years of high school at the American School of Mexico City, Neal went on to UC Irvine, where he made his mark on the UCI swim team, and wrote a successful humor column. Within a year of graduating, he had his first book deal, and was hired to write a movie script.

In the years since, Neal has made his mark as a successful novelist, screenwriter, and television writer. As a full-time writer, he claims to be his own hardest task-master, always at work creating new stories to tell. His books have received many awards from organizations such as the International Reading Association, and the American Library Association, as well as garnering a myriad of state and local awards across the country. Neal’s talents range from film directing (two short films he directed won him the coveted CINE Golden Eagle Awards) to writing music and stage plays.

Wherever Neal goes, he quickly earns a reputation as a storyteller and dynamic speaker. Much of his fiction is traceable back to stories he tells to large audiences of children and teenagers. As a speaker, Neal is in constant demand at schools and conferences. Degrees in both psychology and drama give Neal a unique approach to writing. Neal’s novels always deal with topics that appeal to adults as well as teens, weaving true-to-life characters into sensitive and riveting issues, and binding it all together with a unique and entertaining sense of humor.

Neal Shusterman lives in Southern California with his four children, who are a constant source of inspiration!

From the author’s website.

Genre
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Dystopian

Curriculum Ties
Issues such as abortion rights and euthanasia.

Booktalking Ideas
How would you feel if you were in Connor or Risa’s position – knowing you were going to be unwound? Would you run?

Unwinding was deemed acceptable by the government and people because every part of the body lives on in a divided state. What are your thoughts on this issue?

Reading Level/ Interest Age
14+

Challenge Issues

• Abortion

Defense options

• Be aware of your library’s collection development policy.
• Be familiar with the material in question, and the context of the questionable content.
• Assert the principles of the ALA Library Bill of Rights, and standards of intellectual freedom.
• Consult online book reviews, and others who have read the book.
  • Can the book be interpreted to appeal to both sides of the issue?

Why Included?
Initially, I picked up the book because saw it at my local library and while giving it a quick thumb-though, noticed that one of the characters was named Risa. This is a rather uncommon name and also the name of one of my best friends, so I had to read it. I was not disappointed, and included it here due to how well it accomplished dealing with complex issues.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Book Info
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
© 2005 Simon Pulse, New York, NY
ISBN 978-0689865381

Plot Summary
In the future, science has solved the fuel crisis, mastered hover technology, and found what they think is the key to every living person having the highest quality of life possible: making everyone “pretty.” Too many problems came from the little differences between humans –wars were fought over skin color and religion, bullying brought on by differences sometimes resulted in death, and nearly every person on Earth felt self conscious at some point, but if everyone were pretty, there would be no reason to fight or feel bad about yourself!

Tally was 15, and couldn’t wait until her 16^th birthday when she would become “pretty” just like her best friend Peris who underwent the transformation a few months before her. During this wait, Tally befriends Shay who shares Tally’s birthday, but is happy being an “ugly” and isn’t entirely sure about becoming a pretty. A few days before their shared birthday, Shay tells Tally that she is running away to “The Smoke,” a sort of secret commune populated by people who didn’t want to be turned pretty. Tally decides to stay, but on her birthday instead of being taken to her transformation, she is taken to the facilities of a secretive fabled government agency called Special Circumstances. They tell Tally that she won’t be made into a pretty unless she helps lead them to The Smoke. Will Tally betray her friend just to become pretty?

Reader’s Annotation
Tally Youngblood can’t wait until her sixteenth birthday when she’ll finally have the surgery to become a pretty and join her best friend Peris. But when her new friend and fellow ugly Shay confesses that she doesn’t want to become Pretty, Tally begins to question the world she thought she knew.

Critical Evaluation
I really appreciate books that take on complex issues without the reader even realizing that it’s happening, and Uglies manages to do just this. The overall concept of this future society and how they choose to cope with certain social downfalls is a unique and great one. This book tackles the concept of beauty and the side effects of society’s beauty ideals such as low self esteem and insecurities. This future society believes that if everyone is beautiful, everyone will be happier overall, but Westerfeld makes a case that in doing so it takes away everything that makes us unique and wonderful. Flaws make us who we are and make us different and special. This book beautifully illustrates these concepts and how a seemingly perfect world might not really be so perfect after all.

Information about the Author
Westerfeld was born on May 5, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, but as a child, moved to Callifornia and Connecticut for his father, Lloyd’s, job. His mother, Pamela and two older sisters, Wendy and Jackie, rounded out the Westefeld family. It must have been an exciting time, growing up with a father who traveled to new towns to work on the newest types of technology. He had the opportunity to see his dad working with the Apollo missions in Houston, on Boeing planes in California, and on submarines in Connecticut.

Though Westerfeld seemed to live a fairly normal (though not necessarily ordinary) childhood, he received a very prestigious education. He graduated from Arts Magnet High School in Dallas. He then went on to get his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy at Vassar (located in Poughkeepsie, New York) in 1985. WIthout a break, Westefeld went right into his graduate work in Performance Studies at New York University. Throughout his life he has held a number of jobs, ranging from ghost writer, to textbook editor, substitute teacher, factory worker and software designer.

Visit the author’s website.

Genre
Science Fiction

Curriculum Ties
Sociology

Booktalking Ideas
If your mind wasn’t affected as it is in the book, do you think a society where everyone is beautiful would be better than the way things are? Or would beauty ideals shift so that ugly would still exist?

If Shay had given Tally more time to prepare, do you think she would have decided to join Shay in the smoke?

Reading Level/ Interest Age
12+

Challenge Issues

• Reckless behavior and teenage drinking.

Defense options

• Be aware of your library’s collection development policy.
• Be familiar with the material in question, and the context of the questionable content.
• Assert the principles of the ALA Library Bill of Rights, and standards of intellectual freedom.
• Consult online book reviews, and others who have read the book.
  • Understand the context of the reckless behavior of the pretties, and what it is supposed to represent.

Why Included?
The Uglies series was highly recommended to me by friends, teenage library patrons and colleagues. While there were aspects of the books that I found to be annoying, I thoroughly enjoyed the overall concept and world created in them.