Lion Boy by Zizou Corder

In the future, private automobiles are illegal, cell phones are powered by the sun, and Charlie’s African dad and British mum have been kidnapped by idiots and are being held on a submarine. What’s a boy to do?  In Charlie’s case, he has the secret special ability to speak Cat.  Yes, Cat, the language of cats.  Will his ability to talk to cats in their own language help him reunite with his parents?

Lion Boy is a trilogy bearing some resemblance to the Harry Potter series, though it never became the world-wide phenomenon.  It will appeal to readers looking for another series taking place in a semi-fantastical world where dark threats abound and magical things can happen… sometimes.  -Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Corder, Zizou.  Lion Boy.  New York: Penguin, 2003.

On a Clear Day by Walter Dean Myers

What will the Bronx be like in 2035?  In this posthumously published novel, Walter Dean Myers takes readers on a journey into a vision of the near future.  That vision includes cars that drive themselves, a concentration of power in the hands of a few, the rise of gated communities, microchips embedded in humans at birth, and a spunky protagonist named Dahlia.  A fifteen-year-old math whiz whose mother recently passed away, Dahlia lives on her own in a house with neighbors she considers family in a western part of the Bronx.  What does Dahlia need to know to determine whether she and other bright teens can make a difference while societies around the world seem to be heading towards total atomization and increasingly giving up autonomy to the rule of a few corporations?  This new novel will be of interest to fans of the late, great Myers, as well as readers interested in dystopian futures and the role of teenagers in averting disaster by becoming engaged citizens.  With this text Myers seems to have taken all of his contemporary concerns about young people and woven them into a novel with his tried-and-true structure.  Seasoned readers will find his experiment with a teenaged girl’s voice to be of interest.  We eagerly await students’ verdicts. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Myers, Walter Dean.  On A Clear Day.  New York: HarperCollins, 2014.

Guest Post: Feed by MT Anderson

 

Imagine a world where you don't need a computer to get onto the Internet. You're always on, because it is wired directly into your brain; this is the world of Feed by MT Anderson. Feed is set in a not-too distant future where going to the Moon is as easy as going downtown and where almost everyone has the Feed installed into their brains at birth.

The Feed is like having Facebook and Google Instant Messenger just by thinking about it. Don’t know what to buy? The Feed will tell you. Don’t know what to wear? The Feed will tell you. Don’t know what to say? The Feed will tell you.

This makes school pretty much a joke. You can look up anything you don’t know on the feed, so you really don’t need to study.

This is the world where Titus lives. He’s a 15 year old, bored, and looking for fun. He and his friends take a trip to the Moon for the weekend, but the moon turns out to totally suck...until he meets Violet.

Violet isn’t like anyone he’s ever met before. She didn’t have the Feed installed until she was older, so she can think for herself. She doesn’t just buy what the feed tells her is cool or use the slang the Feed tells her everyone is using. She asks questions that the Feed doesn’t want her to ask. Like why is the rest of the world so angry at us? Why am I only a good person if I buy things? And what is causing these strange, bloody, oozing, pussy lesions that everyone is getting on their bodies?

As Titus talks to Violet at a club on the moon, a hacker breaks into the Feed and hijacks their minds. The police beat him down, call him a terrorist, but Titus can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. It’s not just in his mind. Something has gone wrong with his Feed, and it looks like it might destroy him and Violet unless he can resist it.

But how do you fight your mind? How do you break out of the insanity that everyone around you thinks is normal? How do you save the girl you love from a world that wants to destroy her, and you, with it if you won’t obey.

Welcome to the Feed.

Fans of Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series and readers who have enjoyed The Maze Runner trilogy by James Dashner will find a lot to like in FEED. It's funny, exciting, and unforgettable. While the dystopian universe isn't nearly as violent as the world in Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, it is in a way far scarier: it looks an awful lot like our own. I definitely recommend this book for anyone who's ever looked around and wondered if all our phones and gadgets are actually controlling us. --C. Alexander London

Guest blogger Mr. London is an acclaimed author of middle grade fiction and adult nonfiction.  Find out more at http://www.calexanderlondon.com/