Unwind

by Neal Shusterman
Simon & Schuster | 2007
Buy it here.

There was a second U.S. civil war--called the Heartland War--and for years now, the new rules about life have been established. There's no more option for abortion. Instead, unwanted children can be "storked," or left on the doorstep of any random house. Those who discover the baby must raise it as their own--it's illegal not to. And anyone who decides they don't want a child who has proved difficult? Anytime between the ages of 13 and 18, a child can be "unwound." That is--separated into pieces with each part given to those in medical need of replacement parts. An eye here, a hand there, a lung transplant or heart replacement over there. But each and every part of the unwound must be used, for after all, the child isn't dying--they will live on, but in a disassociated state.

Yup. You read all that right. That's the premise of the world in which Connor, Risa, and Lev live. They accidentally end up as three runaway unwinds bound together by circumstance. Each has come to their planned-to-be-unwound state in different ways, but each have similar questions about their lives, what they mean, and how the society in which they live functions.

Whether the reader is pro-choice, pro-life, or has yet to develop an opinion, the questions in this book are interesting. While Shusterman never uses the term "abortion," this book directly asks the reader to consider the existence of the soul, when life begins, and whether life can continue in alternate ways.

(Note: I've not read the sequel, published this past August, but plan to. It involves a teen made up wholly of parts of unwinds, and somehow involves Connor, Risa, and Lev, who are all likeable characters. It's called Unwholly. I'll report back.)

Ender's Shadow: Parallel Novel to Ender's Game

 

by Orson Scott Card
Tor | 1999
Buy now!

If you haven't read Ender's Game, go. Go read it and then come back. I'll wait.

Okay, good. Now you know what you need to know to read Ender's Shadow, which in my opinion is actually better than Ender's Game. That last statement may perhaps be blasphemous, but I've decided I don't care. As much as I like Ender Wiggin and appreciate his struggles and his story, I find I like Bean that much better. And that Card, fourteen years after Ender's Game was published, decided to go back and write Bean's story, tells me that I'm not the only one with affection for Bean.

This is a parallel novel. This concept is so awesome to me, I don't even know where to start. Basically, Card went back and wrote Ender's Game again, only from the perspective of Bean. Through him, the reader gets that much more information about Battle School, the plans of Graff and the other teachers, and how the war against the buggers plays out. We get to see how Ender's rag-tag army was created and we get to understand more about how the political situation on Earth is playing out. We get to see a strong-willed, strong-minded character we root for even through his sometimes misguided behavior. We get to know Bean, an important character in Ender's Game, in his entirety.

Looking for the perfect holiday gift for a sci-fi-loving kid on your list? Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow, bundled together. And let me also suggest, that no matter whether a reader professes to like sci-fi or not, these books cross-over and transcend genre. Give them a try. You'll be glad you did.

Zoe's Tale

by John Scalzi
Tor | 2008

Zoe lives on Huckleberry, a planet that's part of the Colonial Union. She has her adoptive parents, John and Jane and two Obin, Hickory and Dickory, charged with making sure she's safe, because she is actually the lynchpin in universal peace. When John is chosen to command a new colony on the new planet of Roanoke, Zoe leaves with him, Jane, and 2500 other colonists and heads to their new home. What they don't know is that the Colonial Union has sent them purposely off course to a different planet to hide them from the evil Conclave. And it ends up that only Zoe can save them all in the end.

Scalzi's Old Man's War trilogy, published for adults, ended with The Last Colony, the story of the group's trip to Roanoke, told from John's (Zoe's dad) perspective. He returns to the same story to tell it again--from Zoe's perspective. Zoe's Tale works as a stand-alone novel and there's no need to have read The Last Colony to love it. And, the best part is, even though Zoe's Tale was also published as an adult novel, it is really a YA novel. It's protagonist and storyteller is a teenage girl, and the story is just as concerned with teenage problems as it is with interplanetary warfare.

Anyone who likes YA lit will likely love this. Anyone with a child who likes fantasy books will also love this. It's well written and a really well-paced and exciting story. It's one of my favorites I've read this year. (Don't dismiss it if you usually don't go for Sci-fi--you'd really be missing out!)

Double Helix

by Nancy Werlin
Dial | 2004

Eli lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is graduating as salutatorian of his class. His girlfriend, Viv, is the valedictorian. He's not going to college next year--his mother is dying of Huntington's Disease and he and his dad have a pretty tense relationship. He's going to take a year off and work at Wyatt Transgenics, just down the street, where the famous Dr. Quincy Wyatt is doing amazing things with genetics.

But Dr. Wyatt takes an odd interest in Eli, Eli's dad is angry about it, Viv is wondering what's going on, and then beautiful Kayla comes on the scene, staying at Dr. Wyatt's for the summer. Soon, Eli is caught up in trying to find out his history, why his father hates Dr. Wyatt so much, and what went on more than a decade ago that he thinks he can remember.

This fantastic science fiction novel now published with the tagline: "a mystery" is more rooted in the real world than a mysterious one, in my opinion. Eli's search and desire to know more about who he is makes a lot of sense. And the end leaves room for you to think, and to wonder. What's right? What isn't? Who is Eli? What makes us who we are? 

Just about anyone might love this story, but for anyone who has recently asked for an appropriate book for middle school aged boys: this is it!

The House of the Scorpion

by Nancy Farmer
Atheneum Books for Young Readers | 2002

Matt is an unusual child. He lives in a house in the woods with Celia and he never goes outside. He knows some about how the world works from watching television, but has never experienced anything himself. One day, children show up near the house and see him, banging on the door. He's afraid and enthralled. Soon, he's integrated into the bigger estate and the favored child of El Patrón, the 140-year-old lord of a country called Opium, situated between the United States and what used to be Mexico, which controls all the drug exports to the rest of the world. Matt is favored for a reason. He's the seventh clone of El Patrón, each and every one eventually killed through harvests of organs to keep El Patrón alive.

To say anymore about what happens would be the worst kind of spoiler, so I'll stop here and just say that this National Book Award Winner also won a Newbery Honor and a Printz Honor. Farmer's story-telling skill and her ability to write such a futuristic story in such modern, every-day language are both part of the draw. There's a lot to wonder about here: what makes a person a person? Why and how are decisions made and institutions built? Who has the power and how did they get it?

Matt can help you ponder some of these questions and more.