Dystopia

Ship Breaker

Posted on September 30, 2013 by webmaster

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Shipbreaker
by Paolo Bacigalupi

Set on the American Gulf Coast, Nailer works light crew. His dirty, dangerous job is to crawl deep into the wrecks of the ancient oil tankers that line the beach, scavenging copper wire and turning it over to his crew boss.

After a brutal hurricane passes over, Nailer and his friend, Pima, stumble upon the wreck of a luxurious clipper ship. It’s filled with valuable goods –a “Lucky Strike” that could make them rich, if only they can find a safe way to cash it in.

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Amid the wreckage, a girl barely clings to life. If they help her, she tells them, she can show them a world of privilege that they have never known. But can they trust her? And if so, can they keep the girl safe from Nailer’s drug-addicted father?

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
690L	High School	336	Adventure	2010	1594480001

Unidentified

Posted on September 28, 2013 by webmaster

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The Unidentified
by Rae Mariz

In a startlingly plausible dystopian society, the school system has failed to the point that the government gives over control of national education to corporations. These conglomerates have banded together to create what are known as Game Centers. Here students like Katey Dade, or Kid, go to “school” in refurbished shopping malls. They swipe cards to get in and out, they carry issued cell phones with GPS trackers, they post continuously to profile pages and status feeds (similar to Facebook and Twitter), while administrators and corporate officials monitor their every move.

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Students who achieve the highest scores in games, set the coolest fashion trends, and gain the utmost popularity are “Branded”, instantly assisting the corporations to plug their wares. Kid coasts, never looking to become Branded, but then she is taken up by not just one corporate sponsor, but two, as a “trendspotter”.

As she tries to balance new expectations with betrayals by lifelong friends and new relationships, Kid also begins to question the societal structure around her. Drawn to the prank-pulling group calling themselves The Unidentified, she longs for her previous anonymity and blissful ignorance of the shady dealings all around her.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
780	High School	304	Fantasy	2010	0061802085

Giver

Posted on September 28, 2013 by webmaster

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The Giver
by Lois Lowrey

In the ‘ideal’ world into which Jonas was born, everybody has sensibly agreed that well-matched married couples will raise exactly two offspring, one boy and one girl. These children’s adolescent, sexual impulses will be stifled with specially prescribed drugs; at age 12 they will receive an appropriate career assignment, sensibly chosen by the community’s Elders. This is a world in which the old live in group homes and are ‘released’ –to great celebration– at the proper time; the few infants who do not develop according to schedule are also ‘released’, but with no fanfare.

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Until the time that Jonah begins training for his job assignment: the rigorous and prestigious position of Receiver of Memory he, too, is a complacent model citizen. But as his near-mystical training progresses, and he is weighed down and enriched with society’s collective memories of a world as stimulating as it was flawed, Jonas grows increasingly aware of the hypocrisy that rules his world.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
660L	Middle School	192	Science Fiction	2002	00440237688

Feed

Posted on September 23, 2013 by webmaster

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Feed
by M. T. Anderson

Teen narrator Titus never questions his world, in which parents select their babies’ attributes in the conceptionarium, corporations dominate the information stream, and kids learn to employ the feed more efficiently in School. But everything changes when he and his pals travel to the moon for spring break. There Titus meets home-schooled Violet, who thinks for herself, searches out news and asserts that “Everything we’ve grown up with the stories on the feed, the games, all of that it’s all streamlining our personalities so we’re easier to sell to.”

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“Chats” flow privately from mind to mind; Titus flies an “upcar”; people go “mal” (short for “malfunctioning”) in contraband sites that intoxicate by scrambling the feed; and, after Titus and his friends develop lesions, banner ads and sitcoms dub the lesions the newest hot trend, causing one friend to commission a fake one and another to outdo her by getting cuts all over her body.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
770L	High School	288	Science Fiction	2009	0763622591

Animal Farm

Posted on September 20, 2013 by webmaster

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Animal Farm
by George Orwell

The animals on Mr. Jones’ farm have had enough of what they deem to be slavery. They’re tired of being ordered around by humans while they see no benefits in their daily work. This is all sparked by a dream that the boar, Major, had about a unique place where animals called the shots and never had to be ordered around by humans ever again. He tells them a revolution is very much needed. When Major dies, the animals act quickly and are able to overthrow the alcoholic farmer and his thugs from his very own farm.

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The pigs are in charge now, as they claim that they are much smarter than the others and know how to lead. What seems to be paradise quickly transforms into another form of slavery altogether enforced by propaganda and threats from the pigs. And yet, the animals do not know any better, as they are deceived by the new system that gives them the illusion that they are better off than they were with Mr. Jones calling the shots.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
1170	Middle School	252	Fantasy	2009	1412811902

Hunger Games

Posted on September 17, 2013 by webmaster

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The Hunger Games

by Suzanne Collins

In a not-too-distant future, the United States of America has collapsed, weakened by drought, fire, famine, and war, to be replaced by Panem, a country divided into the Capitol and 12 districts. Each year, two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. Part entertainment, part brutal intimidation of the subjugated districts, the televised games are broadcasted throughout Panem as the 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors, literally, with all citizens required to watch.

When 16-year-old Katniss’s young sister, Prim, is selected as the mining district’s female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart, Peeta, the son of the town baker who seems to have all the fighting skills of a lump of bread dough, will be pitted against bigger, stronger representatives who have trained for this their whole lives.

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Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
810L	High School	384	Fantasy	2008	0439023481

Specials

Posted on September 17, 2013 by webmaster

The Specials (The Uglies Trilogy – Book 3)
by Scott Westerfield

Tally Youngblood lives in a futuristic society that acculturates its citizens to believe that they are ugly until age 16 when they’ll undergo an operation that will change them into pleasure-seeking “pretties.” Anticipating this happy transformation, Tally meets Shay, another female ugly, who shares her enjoyment of hover-boarding and risky pranks. But Shay also disdains the false values and programmed conformity of the society and urges Tally to defect with her to the Smoke, a distant settlement of simple-living conscientious objectors. Tally declines, yet when Shay is found missing by the authorities, Tally is coerced by the cruel Dr. Cable to find her and her compatriots –or remain forever “ugly.”

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Tally’s adventuresome spirit helps her locate Shay and the Smoke. It also attracts the eye of David, the aptly named youthful rebel leader to whose attentions Tally warms. However, she knows she is living a lie, for she is a spy who wears an eye-activated locator pendant that threatens to blow the rebels’ cover.

Other Books in the Trilogy

Click here to view The Uglies – Book One

Click here to view The Pretties – Book Two

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
770L	Middle School	448	Science Fiction	2005	0689865384

Pretties

Posted on September 17, 2013 by webmaster

The Pretties (The Uglies Trilogy – Book 2)
by Scott Westerfield

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Other Books in the Trilogy

Click here to view The Uglies – Book One

Click here to view The Specials – Book Three

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
770L	Middle School	448	Science Fiction	2005	0689865384

Uglies

Posted on September 17, 2013 by webmaster

The Uglies (The Uglies Trilogy – Book 1)
by Scott Westerfield

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Other Books in the Trilogy

Click here to view The Pretties – Book Two

Click here to view The Specials – Book Three

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
770L	Middle School	448	Science Fiction	2005	0786856297

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