Through 6 July 2011, you can download the mp3 audiobook of Little Brother FREE at SYNC’s site (2 free YA audiobooks each week all summer – yay!) with free Overdrive listening service, no DRM restrictions.
Or you can have Little Brother delivered free by e-mail (the whole book, in 139 chunks) through the fabulous Daily Lit service on the schedule you select (stop and start as you wish, have the next chunk delivered now, etc.)!
And any time you can download a text-readable version of Little BrotherFREE here, with the author’s permission and blessing. Yes, really! Cory has found out that folks read his books and short stories online/on screen, then go buy the print books or eBooks (he’s right – that’s what I did).
Of course, you can pop down to your local library or indie bookstore to get it, too!
Don’t miss Little Brother! Stay free!
**kmm
MY Recommendation: When terror attacks strike San Francisco, Marcus and his friends were skipping school to play a high-tech search game. Getting past the school’s ever-present cameras and snooper-computers had just been a game, too, but the authorities think those technogeek talents may connect the teens to the attacks. Although Darrell was stabbed during the panic following the bombings, Homeland Security detains them for days without their parents’ knowledge.
When the friends are released, but Darrell is nowhere to be found, Marcus vows to use his technical talents to strike back against intrusive security surveillance in every neighborhood, constant wiretapping, and increasing loss of citizens’ personal liberties. Hundreds of others join him online to fight against the “Big Brother” tactics being used to monitor everyone in the city.
But the pressure is on – Why is his social studies teacher replaced with someone who lectures that the Bill of Rights only applies sometimes?
Why don’t the US newspapers report about the chaos in San Francisco?
Will Marcus be able to keep up the fight for freedom of speech while staying a jump ahead of the authorities and still keep his friends safe?
A cautionary tale with a techno-twist. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
It’s Fun Friday – Time for school in space! Yes, Dave Roman’s new graphic novel takes us straight to Astronaut Academy, with a curriculum you just won’t believe. Oh, some things in middle school are the same even in outer space (the principal, snarky former best friends), but Astronaut Academy’s variations on ball games and emergency drills are amazing.
Of course, Hakata Soy’s crime-fighting superhero past may catch up with him…
The former comics editor of Nickelodeon Magazine took advantage of its closing to concentrate on his own cartooning, so watch for more of his self-published minicomics to grow into full-fledged books.
Dave is married to Raina Telgemeier who wrote and drew Smile (5/13/11 featured book) – yes, he proposed to her via webcomic! Just imagine two cartoonists in the same apartment… I heard them at a Texas Library Association presentation in April, then met Dave again in May at International Reading Association. Just waiting for their next books!
**kmm
My Book Talk: Everyone else is already at Astronaut Academy, but Hakata is late for school! A few weeks late, since he and his mecha-friends were busy saving the world of Hoppiton from the terrible Gotcha Birds.
Senor Panda teaches Spanish (and spying), Doug just wants to wear his spacesuit and stay out on spacewalk all day, and Marcos wonders why at least one of Hakata’s hearts is broken. If the Gotcha Birds decide to attack Astronaut Academy to get the bunny students from Hoppiton, it could disrupt the Fireball Tournament!!
Students, teachers, and non-students take turns telling/showing their stories in this wacky graphic novel – does your Astronaut Academy have classes in Advanced Heart Studies, Fire Throwing, Run-on Sentences, and Wearing Cute Hats? (you can’t win Dinosaur Driving Races if you don’t wear a Cute Hat… just ask Maribelle Mellonbelly)
Action! Adventure! Oxygen gum and flashbacks! The first semester at Astronaut Academy has it all…with an extra helping of funny! (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
For World Oceans Day, a frightening possible future for Earth as climate change and melting glaciers threaten to drown humanity.
So, diving to salvage canned goods from flooded supermarkets would help your chances of survival – relying on the brutal Ecks brothers and their extremely crazy father Preacher John would definitely reduce your chances…
Clever kids will always find innovative solutions to problems, even if there’s only a 33% chance that their gassy output will have enough methane to make their invention work.
Survival and escape – a classic adventure story theme set in a watery dystopia – can the guys really make it off X Isle alive? **kmm
Recommendation: The seas rise to drown the Earth, leaving inland cities as islands, the remaining humans desperate to survive. Everyone knows that X Isle is the best place to be, where the salvage divers bring up food and supplies from sunken shops and stores.
The Ecks family trades salvaged canned goods to the mainlanders for fuel, sometimes taking a lucky boy to work with them, if his parents have something special to send along with him, and he’s small and strong. A boy who’s too big to feed is sent back from the island, of course.
This day, both Baz and Ray are chosen to go to X Isle, where Preacher John prays for the survival of humanity. They’re sure that there must be many, many boys working there, but are surprised to find only eight and are shocked to find out what they must really do.
When they learn that no one makes it off X Isle alive, the boys all decide that they must invent a weapon to free themselves, using their best resource – methane gas from farts. But will they really be willing to destroy their captors? Can they be as brutal as their guards and the Ecks brothers and the increasingly crazy Pastor John? (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
Surviving disaster is one thing. Living beyond the confines of your grief is another. Making memorials to mark the passing of loved ones should help ease the pain…
In this sequel to Green Angel, Ash begins to heal, as the memories of her former world cry out to be recaptured, the captives to be freed, the forbidden technologies whisked out of sight of the invaders. And so she writes down the memories, travels to hear the stories, uses the machines, regardless of the peril.
Are there parallels to our own history in the events of Green’s world?
Can we learn to see different stories as reasonable, to live together in peace?
May this hopeful tale lead us to hopeful times.
**kmm
Book info: Green Witch / by Alice Hoffman; illustrated by Matt Mahurin. Scholastic, 2010. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Book Talk: Green had watched as the City burned, consumed her family, turned the world to ash as the Horde tried to destroy all technology. Scarred, then healed, she now watches her garden grow tall and strong near the memorial stones for her father, her mother, and her sister.
The village folks come to Green’s farm and tell her their stories, so many stories that she must make new paper to write them all down (books are the first things that the Horde destroys). And they tell her of “the witches,” the wise ones who never come to the village, who have special powers after The Fire. But Green will only write down a story directly from its source, so she journeys to find each of the witches and learn their stories, her sister’s dog as her companion.
When the Finder of hidden technology asks her to help rescue his sister from the Horde’s prison, Green uses the stories of the witches to guide them. Might she find her lost love, as well?
This beautiful sequel to Green Angel shows hope shining through the ashes of war and destruction. (one of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
What would you do if everyone, everything was taken from you? How could you cope, not yet 16, the ash falling, falling, falling… The end of Days? Prophecy coming to pass? Invasion?
This slim volume holds much sadness, many fears, and a fragment of hope as a young woman tries to go on living after unimaginable disaster.
Followed by Green Witch, tomorrow’s featured book.
*kmm
Book info: Green Angel / by Alice Hoffman; illustrated by Matt Mahurin. Scholastic, 2003. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Book Talk: Black ashes fill the sky, as the City across the river burns. Green thought it wasn’t fair that she had to stay in the garden while her little sister and parents took their produce to the market across the bridge. Soon she would be 16 and could move to the city if she wanted to. She was always shy around other people while her sister, Aurora, glowed with happiness. But fire rained down on the City, burned the bridge, and consumed her family.
Green doesn’t need her ember-burnt eyes to see how the ashes kill the birds, blanket the garden, and smother the plants. She tattoos herself with each memory of loss, hacks off her hair, and armors herself against the world in her father’s coat sewn over with thorns, renaming herself Ash.
Food becomes scarce, and looters try to take over the farm. Hearing more than seeing, Ash gets through one day, then the next, with her sister’s dog as companion.
Will the sun never shine again?
Why was the City attacked?
Will this world remain ashes and death forever, or will it be green again someday?
This short lyrical tale traces Ash’s despair and Green’s hope. Next in the series is Green Witch. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
Plastic trees, pre-fab food, every social and business interaction online only – sounds a little tempting when you’re caught in traffic on the way to school or trapped in yet another blah-blah-blah lecture course.
But if every minute of school occurs online, the only people you see day in and day out are family members, the only birdsong you ever heard was historic digital audio, the only way you know your thoughts are your own is… well, you couldn’t be sure of that, could you?
A prediction? A cautionary tale? Welcome to a future where DigitalSchool shapes young human minds while all other living things become obsolete…
*kmm
Recommendation: School is completely online in 2060, so Maddie rarely sees anyone in person, except her mom and dad. Why does this Justin guy want to meet her at a face-to-face Tutor session? She could just see him online 24/7, like her other friends all over the world. Anyway, her dad grounded her till age 18 after she went into his DigitalSchool master computer two years ago.
Her parents say that Justin is dangerous, that his parents were terrorists, that he’s only trying to see 17-year-old Maddie because of her dad’s DigitalSchool business. But Justin actually speaks to her like a thinking human being, showing her the real Portland with pastries instead of nutri-bars and live musicians instead of soundfiles online.
It seems that not everyone is happy with DigitalSchool. Justin wants her to sneak more information from her dad’s computer so they can crash that system and give kids the chance to get outside, away from computer-simulated beach views and back to the real sand and sea, away from thousands of online friends they’ve never seen and back to interacting with real friends.
During a dangerous DS student “rescue” with Justin, Maddie has to decide whether she’ll abide by her dad’s authoritarian rules or risk losing her place in 2060’s society.
Can she trust Justin?
Could she really live where trees aren’t plastic and sunsets aren’t on a computer screen?
Is there something malicious in DigitalSchool, something bad enough for Maddie to risk life in prison?
A glimpse of a potential future where keeping the peace may be more dangerous to humanity than allowing conflicting ideas… (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher through NetGalley.com.
Welcoming guest blogger Maggie who highlights a ‘forgotten gem’ of YA fiction – in this case, classic science fiction that may turn out to be closer to reality than we’d like to believe.
**kmm
Maggie’s Recommendation: An oldie but a goodie, Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (published in various story forms since 1977) takes place in a post-Cold War dystopia in which parents are discouraged from having more than two children. Disgracefully, Ender is a Third, but, although he should be the spare – the expendable one – he is selected by the powers that be to be trained on a space station orbiting Earth. He is put through rigorous, even abusive, combat training which alienates him from the other recruits on board the station. His final “training exercise” requires him to command a fleet of space ships launched in an offensive against an alien home world – such a realistic videogame.
Card did not first intend to write a young adult novel, but his themes reach out to a much wider audience than he ever intended to address. In his acceptance speech for the Margaret A. Edwards Award, he admits, “Ender’s Game was written with no concessions to young readers. My protagonists were children, but the book was definitely not aimed at kids” (Card, “Margaret” 15). Nevertheless, he writes, “Young readers… are… deeply inside Ender’s character. They still live in a world largely (or, with younger readers, entirely) shaped by the adults around them. Ender’s attitude is revelatory to them” (Card, “Margaret” 17).
Although some see Ender’s Game as dated by its post-Cold War binaries of East and West – and subsequently Human and Alien – this novel, like many by Card, has a long lasting appeal to readers of all ages.
Works Mentioned
Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Game. New York: Tor, 1991.
—. “Margaret A. Edwards Award Acceptance Speech.” Young Adult Library Services (Fall 2008): 14-18.
Guest Blogger Bio: L. Maggie Fanning, M.A. English professor, creative writer, and professional editor. Respond to my reflections at http://thehappybibliophile.blogspot.com or at fanning.editor@gmail.com.
Ley lines and legendary figures from Native American/First Peoples mythology.
Bioplague and a Gaia/Earth that can no longer heal itself.
Our potential future, Kelsa’s world, so much at stake.
Read this first book in the Raven Duet outside, under a real, living tree.
**kmm
Book info: Trickster’s Girl / Hilari Bell. Clarion/ Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2011. 268 pg [author’s site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Recommendation: As Kelsa is burying Dad’s ashes in the scrap of forest left near the city, a young man with no ID chip approaches her, wondering why she doesn’t believe in magic. Ha! Her father just died of cancer, that curable everyday problem, worrying about the bioplague dropped by terrorists in the Amazon rainforest, the antidote that didn’t work, the deforestation of whole countries that followed. Magic in a world of aircars and compods and microchefs?
This isn’t hocus-pocus magic, Kelsa finds out, as Raven transforms himself into a fish, a bird, right before her eyes. He describes how humankind’s demands have blocked the ley lines of spirit, keeping the earth from healing itself. Now forests can’t fight off the bioplague and humans can’t fight off curable cancers and worse natural disasters loom ahead.
Kelsa has a flicker of magic in her soul, and Raven needs her help to unblock key nexus points on the ley lines from Utah to Alaska with a Native American artifact. But first they have to rob a museum to get it, then slip away from the police without worrying her mother.
Surviving in the wilderness as her dad taught her, escaping from agents of spirits who’d rather erase humanity and start earth anew, riding bikes and motorcycles over mountain trails toward nexus points, crossing boundaries without passports…
Can Kelsa really help the earth heal itself?
Is Raven the Trickster telling her the whole truth?
This is the first book of Bell’s new series based in a high-tech, high-security future United States whose only hope is the magic recounted in ancient folklore. (one of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandhug.com)
Can the folks in charge really control every bit of what people learn and know?
Can history be rewritten so completely that the truth will never be discovered?
Take a little trip with this book that moves our fear of the different to a whole ‘nother level.
And “May the Fourth be with you” – it’s Star Wars Day!
**kmm
My Recommendation: Frozen for the 300-year space journey to a new Earth with her scientist parents – what will it really be like, Amy wonders. Centuries pass on the spaceship Godspeed for the placid farmers on the Feeder level and stolid techs on the Shipper level, all 20 or 40 or 60 years old, each “gen” all born the same year following the Season of mating, same color skin, same color hair, same color eyes.
Elder was born a dozen years earlier than his gen, so that his training as their leader will be complete when he becomes Eldest. Because the Elder before him died early, he is trained by crotchety Eldest who should have already retired and dislikes the teenager’s questions. Life aboard ship requires harmony and working together and strong leadership and no individuality, says Eldest.
Why didn’t he tell Elder about the lower level below the Feeder farm blocks, a level filled with frozen people waiting to be reanimated when they reach Centauri-Earth? That level’s alarms sound as a Frozen’s cryo is turned off, and a pale-skinned, red-haired teenage girl wakes up. Amy is stunned to find that her parents aren’t awake, that the ship is decades away from landing, that she’s trapped in this tiny world with people who know only a sanitized version of Earth’s history, one that reinforces uniformity and follows a strong leader without questions.
Suddenly other cryos are turned off with no alarms sounding, and experts from the past are dead, sent through the hatch into the vacuum of space by Eldest like any other dead bodies.
Who is killing the cryos?
Are the crazy people in the hospital the only sane ones on Godspeed? Will Amy ever talk to her parents again?
Will the ship ever reach its destination?
A great space thriller, with plenty of questions about ethics, leadership, and humanity. (one of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
It’s Fun Friday – Time for school in space! Yes, Dave Roman’s new graphic novel takes us straight to Astronaut Academy, with a curriculum you just won’t believe. Oh, some things in middle school are the same even in outer space (the principal, snarky former best friends), but Astronaut Academy’s variations on ball games and 
Can the folks in charge really control every bit of what people learn and know?