Briar Rose by Jane Yolen

Jane's book left me so dismayed,
She's certainly drunk the Kool-Aid.
The bias is clear,
The agenda is dear,
To the heart of a liberal Crusade.

SAFETY RATING: DaVinci Pile

(I added this text after people sent comments. I am clarifiying the chronology for those who posted comments before I further clarified my perspective.)

I suppose one snarky comment deserves another (addressing one comment received).

I think it’s because I disagree with a couple of popular of ideas that are often simplistically presented to children.

One of these ideas is that the sin of anti-Semitism, undoubtedly evident within certain Christian circles, was responsible (perhaps even entirely responsible) for the rise of the Nazi party or the motivation to support the Nazi’s genocidal campaigns. While anti-Semitism is a grave sin that must be acknowledged, opposed and repudiated, I don’t believe that the Nazi’s ideology and quest for power is rooted solely or primarily in the mistreatment of Jews by any one or more indviduals acting in accord with the moral precepts of Christianity or any other religious group for that matter.

The second idea that I disagree with is that to treat homosexuals with dignity and compassion it is necessary to believe that acts of sodomy are, at the very least, morally neutral and preferably even “healthy”.

I know that opposing these two fashionable ideas will not be appreciated by many, perhaps even the occasional reader of this blog. It’s an interesting time we live in. It’s OK to influence other people’s young children with your view of human sexuality, but when parents balk, they are “deniers of the holocaust.”

How ironic. The story starts with what I call caricatures of characters. The girl who writes for the alternative newspaper is the epitome of kindness and compassion. She’s even understanding of her shallow, mean sisters who are disapproving of her. Don’t people who like the book want to imitate her? Or are we only supposed to imitate the way she thinks?

Having said this, justice requires that I give credit where it is due, Briar Rose is a beautiful story in many ways and well-told. Unfortunately, it also contains a tendentious point-of-view that I found to be as unpleasant as it is erroneous.

For example, can someone can someone please point me to where the Catholic Church taught that it is forbidden for a Catholic to attend Jewish synagogues? Spare the obligatory references to St. John Chrysostom, his anti-Semitic rants have never been considered representative of the Catholic Church’s teaching.

Considering that the book’s first introduction to Polish Catholics describes them as nervousness to be attending a (gasp!) Jewish funeral, speaks volumes. Unfortunately, this portrayal suggests the utterly false notion that the Catholic Church was at least part of an anti-Semitic bias, where else would the Polish Catholics learn this bigotry? While the author might be entitled to her own opinion (however misinformed) she may not be entitled to her own facts.

Fortunately, the truth re the Catholic Church in Poland, Germany and through-out the world during the reign of the Nazis has been thoroughly documented. Contrary to what is suggested in the book, the Church was a courageous defender of the Jews as evidenced by the many sons and daughters who were killed while protecting both Jews and other persecuted minorities (including large numbers of Catholics) during the Nazi’s reign of terror.

The authoritative voice of the Church at the time was Pope Pius. He saved more Jews than Oscar Schindler hoped to by far, clearly taught anti-Semitism as a sin, and was praised, rightly and widely by the Jews of his day. The modern world generally spills ink only to vilify, lie and slander this man. I can only grasp their disrespect to the opinion of the Jews of his time, whose voice they flatly refuse to listen to, as a biased hatred. It is ironic considering the topic of the book.


Look at this lady - Let us never forget!
The world hasn't just become wicked...it' s always been wicked. The prize doesn't always go to the most deserving.



Irena Sendler

There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena.

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.

She had an 'ulterior motive'.

She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews (being German).

Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids).

She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.

The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.



She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.



After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family.

Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize.

She was not selected.
President Obama won one year before becoming President for his work as a community organizer for ACORN
and
Al Gore won also --- for a slide show on Global Warming.



It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.

This is in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated!

Now, more than ever, with Iran , and others, claiming the HOLOCAUST to be 'a myth'.

It's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.

Someone (else) should forward this to Jane Yolen. She could do justice to the story if so inspired...

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The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

Believe it or not, I never got around to reading the Tale of Despereaux (same author). Based on the good feedback about it, I thought I’d like this one.

I don’t.

The story was a fine one. She writes well, but we part ways on a non-negotiable.

Namely: the orphan boy in the story consults a fortuneteller to find out if his sister is still alive. The teller gives him a mysterious answer, but one that makes sense as the story unfolds and he unravels the mysterious words of the fortune and circumstances of his life. Also, the pastors of the local churches are troubled by the fortune-tellers but not at all for the right reason. They simply don’t want them to get-out-of-hand. Nothing about the inherent dangers of playing with the occult is mentioned by them (or anyone else).

I cannot see why a child wouldn’t be intrigued by the idea of consulting a fortune-teller after reading this. It sounds valid and mysterious to boot.

To emphasize the point, the elephant is, indeed, conjured up by magic. Not the sleight-of-hand kind. A magician learns a genuine spell from an older magician. The spell conjures up an elephant that falls from the sky and lands on an older lady in the audience who is paralyzed by it. At the end of the book, he uses another incantation to conjure it away.

The book has a quasi-unreal feel about it at times, but the story and the magic is matter-of-fact and told in a real-world way.

Anyway, I don’t know what’s worse: taking the demonic too seriously, or not seriously enough. Either way, Satan wins. I’ll leave this book to those who are convinced that it’s “just” a fairy tale and fortune telling is fine.

SAFETY RATING: DaVinci Pile

See Catechism of the Catholic Church: 2115; 2116; 2117

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

The first page starts with references to people who will sleep with anyone they can. Suicide appears by about page four. Next, there’s a stomach-churning description of the indiscretions of the protagonist’s sister. For the sake of the tweens who might read this blog, no further description is necessary. At this point, we're about 3 chapters in. As an adult, I’m not up to reading anymore despite the obviously gifted writing voice of the author. It’s just not worth the immersion in the darker side of the culture…

SAFETY RATING: DaVinci Pile

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The Rule of Claw by John Brindley

While I’m not one to write an apologetic for the horror genre, I think it has its literary value. The Rule of Claw started with real promise in this field along the footsteps of a King or Crichton. However, it degenerated into a polemic along the lines of a Pullman or Brown story, without even the saving grace of an exciting story.

First, I’ll distill the story down to basics. Professor Helix, in an attempt to solve problems with overpopulation and global warming, causes hyper-accelerated evolution when he tinkers with DNA.

Professor Helix’s daughter, Ash, is one of a group of children left in a camp where adults collected the children who were resistant to the death and disease brought on by the altered DNA. The adults left and died. The children fend for themselves. Ash is kidnapped by one of the new species and now the story bogs down as Ash has long, protracted contact with the brand-new species that are evolving rapidly and fighting for survival.

In this fight-for-survival world, the characters get lots of time to explain the hard-core materialistic, utilitarian worldview of the atheistic evolutionist. While every species is fighting for survival, and it is made crystal-clear that there is no reason we are here other than the lucky crap shot of evolutionary adaptations and processes, the rodent creatures and the human Ash are clearly morally appealing because they exhibit traits of understanding, tolerance of all species, love, desire for peace, (and, the pinnacle of their moral superiority is manifest by their vegetarian habits and insistence on pacificm).

Uhh… no logical disconnect there.

At least the good guys/bad guys are clear. The rodents are the peak of evolutionary perfection thus far. They even have a wise and kind leader. Our Lady. (if that moniker troubles you at all, you are no doubt not nearly as intelligent and open-minded as our protagonist). Tut. Tut. The good guys have no religion and know that they are one of many species, and they accept, as good, evolved species should, that they are no different from any other species in any significant way. And they are intelligent, like Ash, because they accept not just evolution, but Creator-free evolution. Ash understands that, and that shows her keen intellect.

The bad guys are the ones who are inclined to violence because they see themselves as being made in the image of a Creator. That makes them likely to harm others whom they see as inferior. The bad guys also all believe in a 6,000 year old young earth because that’s the only theory besides mindless-evolution.

Nope. Nothing simplistic and close-minded there.

We see the fruit of this foolish thinking when the adults come back. They try to indoctrinate the children about Genome: a God of their own imagination, whom they create to fit their thinking and make up rituals about.

The children do save themselves in the end (with wise Ash-child’s help) by rejecting the adults and determining to KEEP THEM OUT….

No big surprise to discover the author promotes a form of moral relativism. When a huge, disgusting leech attaches itself to Ash and clearly will kill her if left to its own devices, the character Rat explains that he will kill it for utilitarian reasons. But he makes it clear that he is only doing it because he has to: who is he to say whether this creature should live or die? He makes no judgment. This holds some logic if you believe all species are equally accidents of cosmic chance. The inherent illogic of moral relativism in general bypasses any scrutiny by the author: That is... moral relativists hold that there are no absolute truths ruling the universe… and that is an absolute truth.

Any tween who has had Introductory Logic, exposure to logical fallacies, read Aquinas, Augustine, Plato and Socrates, spent some time studying the evolution/creation issue without an agenda, will be ready for this book. By then, they won’t want to read it.

They won’t miss much.

RATING: DaVinci Pile

See Catechism of the Catholic Church:

revelation of the Creator God through reason 285
theology of creation and natural science 283; 284
theology of creation and philosophy 285
God creates out of nothing 296
Beauty of creation 341

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If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period by Gennifer Choldenko

An intriguing title... An excellent perspective on the issue of race... Witty dialogue... Too bad the book loses its charm about half-way through once you realize where it’s going.

This story alternates between Kirsten and Walker’s points-of-view. Walker is the only African American boy at the private school Kirsten attends.

Concerns:
~ Kirsten’s mom and dad fight constantly in front of them and are on the verge of divorce
~ plenty of cra_’s, Go_d’s, but_’s.
~ the teen talk can be pretty blunt: “feels like there’s a giant bulls-eye painted on my naked brown booty.”
~ a teacher who seats children by zodiac sign; a palm reading (which the Hispanic character responds to with a sign-of the cross)
~a friend starts wearing tight clothes that “show her butt crack.”

The DaVinci designation derives from the plot premise as well as how it is handled. Walker is Kirsten’s half-brother. Kirsten’s dad loved Walker’s mom,Sylvia, and they made Walker, but Sylvia didn’t love Kirsten’s dad. Kristen’s mom had her before she was married to Kirsten’s dad, 2 months apart from Walker’s birth, although, according to her mom, Kirsten’s dad did not actually cheat. Nope. Kirsten’s mom explains this. They were in an on-again, off-again relationship that was apparently, (do the math), off long enough to get quite “close” to Sylvia, and thus have babies with 2 women, 2 months apart.

Conveniently enough, Kirsten and her sister accept this all with great aplomb, and Kirsten’s mom even makes efforts to be friendly to Sylvia. The whole moral quagmire of a mess is vaguely explained with the comment that grown ups make mistakes and kids have to forgive them.

Apparently, they have hope of achieving all this reconciliation without recourse to God’s grace. A tall order indeed. Not only is there no mention of repentance of heart, there is a strong spiritual blindness as to what needs repentance and conversion of heart.

Children gradually find out on their own that their parents aren’t perfect. Such a shocking shove forward from a book is not helpful.

(This author's book, Al Capone Does My Shirts is a big award-winner. I'll be reviewing it soon since I already let my older tween read it.)

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The Red Blazer Girls by Michael D. Beil

You know the terms "mortal" and "venial." This book was a mortal disappointment. While reading, I found it slipping into venial problems; I hoped it would stay there, but it crossed the line.

So much promise. I loved the cover ( a mystery! a puzzle!) , the premise (harking back to Nancy Drew), and the setting (a Catholic girls’ school).

I tried to stifle my Spidey instincts when this Catholic-based story received raves by the secular crowd. Alas, there turns out to be reason the pop culture finds it hunky-dory, and it's not because this is a ray of sunshine for the New Evangelization.

First, the plot. A group of 7th grade girls at St. V’s school for girls sets out to solve a mystery, a la’ Nancy Drew-style. (Do you really need the details?)

Well and good. On top of it, we get charming little references to stained-glass windows, a church, a priest, school uniforms, and saints. But soon, you get the tribal Catholic feel: the cultural references are all fun on the surface, but it is not to be taken seriously by we modern sorts. For example, when one of the girls is prepared to pull a Bible out of her backpack in order to research a clue, the response of the cute-boy is something like, you are not actually carrying a Bible? What is that school doing to you? And then, when she “justifies” it as necessary for her homework, all is cool again.

There are Oh my Go-‘s replete (where is a ruler-wielding nun when you need one)?, Holy Craps (which the “cool” priest also says), hel-‘s, dam-‘s, I could live with these as venial if the rest of the novel held promise.

While most of it is a breezy romp with a Catholic-lite flavor, the cultural degradation still comes through.

A character refers to her “psychic” cat as being one of her relatives, reincarnated. One of the schoolgirls jokingly pretends to meditate, Eastern-style (ooohhhmmm…)to calm down the main character, Sophie. We get treated to the flippant comment, “ I don’t think the church burns many people at the stake these days….”

My point-of-no-return was when the star cute-boy was reporting to the main character, his mutual crush, Sophie, on the wild behavior of the girls at the dance she missed. Then, he gets her all stirred up when he proceeds to demonstrates the wild kind of dancing going on by having her stand up and grabs her hips, back to front. To add insult to injury, right before this, Sophie tells about when her friend Margaret was over for dinner and was embarrassed because her parents started talking about their “first times.”

Just in case your child might be thinking you’re doing them a favor by protecting them from a decadent culture with way-too-low sexual standards, the main character makes sure to clarify that her family has frank discussions: she’s not, gasp, a Prude!

Safety Rating: DaVinci Pile

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Sammy Keyes and the Skeleton Man (Sammy Keyes Series) by Wendelin Van Draanen

Another favorite of librarians. But I consider it a pop culture series to avoid.

It’s a cutesy story with a spunky girl protagonist. The writing is catchy and fun-for-adolescents, but there are too many strikes against it, with at least one strike being fatal…

Quick plot: Sammy is a tween who has 2 issues going on in this book. She and her 2 friends go to the local creepy house on Halloween and go inside to put out a fire, find an older man tied up with a mask on his face, and rescue him. They later figure out someone was trying to kill him. Sammy helps with tracking down the culprit. Also, at school, she and friends hatch a plot to get even with a mean girl, Heather, who has been making calls to the school's cool boy, pretending to be Sammy and having a big crush on him.

Minor to major problems:

~ Sammy’s antagonistic relationship with the local police officer.
~ The big party thrown for 7th and 8th graders, smoking of cigarettes included.
~ The liberal use of “stupid” and casual use of “butt.”
~ At the big party, one girl gives the "cool" boy a sly wink. It's the kind of lascivious innuendo that you don't want your junior high (or older) girl to know about or master.
~ Sammy exacts revenge on her school enemy by humiliating her by playing an (illegal, although there's no mention of it) tape recording of her making a prank phone call over the school P.A. system. While satisfying and kind of funny, no repentance and forgiveness are in sight. Just revenge and the consequences afterward don't adequately deal with such a topic. It's more about clever Sammy escaping trouble for herself.
~ Sammy’s situation of living with her grandmother because her mother abandoned her, running off to try to become an actress. No relationship with mom in this book. No dad mentioned in this book.
~ The reference, twice, to Heather’s mom as a spandex-wearing flirt. A flirt to seventh-eighth grade boys, on top of it. Heather refers to her mother derogatorily and dismissively.

An adolescent whose mother runs away and another mother who flirts with under-age boys. Yikes. That parents like these exist is a tragedy to be acknowledged, not fodder for adolescents to absorb as normal….

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Kit's Wilderness by David Almond

I thought this new book showed promise of being boy-friendly. No such luck. This book shouldn’t cross the threshold of your home let alone into your tween’s imagination.

It not only reeks of darkness, it skips straight to the occult. Askew is a 13 yr. old boy who acts like a high priest amongst a select group of middle-school children who play a game called “Death” after school in an abandoned coal mine pit. The narrator of the story, Kit, is drawn into Askew’s after-school game when Askew catches him at school, looks into his eyes and informs him, like a prophet, that he is “one of them” and will join them and “see.”

He soon joins their game. Below ground, they gather in a circle, spin a knife, and the “winner” of the spin kneels before Askew, who’s dressed appropriately in his black Megadeath T-shirt. After chanting lines such as “We truly wish to die,” Askew waves the knife, then puts his hand on their heads, closes their eyes, presses their eyelids, and they fall down, supposedly “dead.”

The other children climb out and wait until the “dead’ person resurrects. Just in case you’re still missing the occult imagery, there are demonic creatures carved in the sides of the cave walls (alongside angels, as though there were no difference) and a pile of supposedly human bones. Also, Kit, in between a couple games of Death, has a conversation with his grandfather where his grandfather tells him about when he was a child and he and the village children would dance around the village monument to the dead children who died in the mines, and they would recite the Our Father backwards.

When Kit plays the Death game and “dies,” he wakes up able to see the dead, former pit- children. He is then informed by Askew that he will be “seeing more now.”

That was just one-third of the way through the book, and I’m done. It's too dark for me to continue... However it turns out, it's not able to redeem itself.

Safety Rating: DaVinci Pile

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Playing in Traffic by Gail Giles

This is the straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back book for me. I got this book off a recommended list from America's most prominent Middle School English teacher (whose books on teaching I like a lot). After reading this (and about 5 others off her list), I started this blog. So many of her recommended books were morally offensive. (I've surmised she's a fallen-away Catholic.)
She says parents rarely question the books she lets her students read.
Her parents must be:
A) too trusting
B) nutty
C) foolish
D) fooled
E) way-too-busy
F) moral relativists
G) some combination of the above

If I sat down to write the worst of trash-talk show theme titles, I think my top 4 would be covered in this book.

Maybe you parents (and only parents) should read it just so you won't think I'm Letter B.

Safety Rating: DaVinci Pile

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Candy by Kevin Brooks

I only skimmed this one. The theme of prostitution was enough reason to skip it. Those who think that peeking at the dark side via a book is safe for tweens are only thinking of the physical body.

Safety Rating: DaVinci Pile

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Shakespeare's Secret by Elise Broach

This cutesy story with a bit of mystery and a breezy style is about a family with 2 tweens who move into a new home when their father gets a new job as professor of Shakespearean literature. Their daughter, Hero, (named after a character in Much Ado about Nothing) meets the new, elderly neighbor who starts her on a quest for a diamond that she is sure is hidden in Hero's new home. The diamond happened to have been owned by Anne Boleyn.

I wanted to like this book, and when the author quoted Shakespeare and Dylan Thomas, it was filled with promise.

Then the irony kicked in. One of the characters makes the accusation to Hero that she and her generation know nothing of English Literature. Meanwhile, this author demonstrates a dim and narrow knowledge of the history she is fond of weaving into her story.

We are presented with a character who gushes matter-of-factly that Queen Elizabeth was "the greatest Queen of England." Completely absent is the mention that her crown may have been tarnished a bit by her ardent repression, persecution and intolerance of Catholics unlucky enough to be trying to practice their faith under her reign.

Then, comes the presentation of the idea that Henry the VIII presents the above-mentioned diamond in a necklace to Anne Boleyn, to placate her while waiting for the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Of course, the fact that in order to procure this "annulment" Henry had to hijack the church, claim the authority of the pope, and murder St. Thomas More is conspicuously absent as well.

Anne Boleyn, we learn from this author, is a brave, noble, amazing woman. This is based on an impressive speech she gives at her death which is related in the book. Her predecessor, Catherine of Aragon, who by all accounts conducted her life in a noble manner, was beloved by her people, and did not scheme for the throne, commit adultery on the way there and be complicit in letting the original wife lose everything, does not merit a single adjective. Catherine gets the brush-off as a side note as we pay starry-eyed tribute to poor Anne.

So.. subsequently, it is no big surprise when the neighbor reveals that she was married for 19 years to the man whose house Hero now lives in, and they segue easily into a friendly divorce whereby she befriends the new wife in a happily-ever-after.

I was actually thinking mid-book that maybe with a history lesson this would be a valuable book in teaching our tweens how to read with a critical eye. But I'm afraid that parents would have too much work on their hands. If you're trying to teach a sacramental view of marriage, you might not want to parade too many characters in front of your children that have a casual acceptance of serial monogamy. The cool, debonair boy who teams up with Hero also has the mother who ran away. This boy sneaks into his police-chief dad's office with Hero to look up a file and casually lies when he gets caught. The elderly neighbor corrects him about lying and cautions him not to vandalize a bathroom at Hero's school. The next chapter, he vandalizes it. He spray-paints black paint over comments that were made about Hero. When the principal confronts Hero, she points out that if Hero had come to her, the school would have dealt with it instead of having extra problems in dealing with the paint. The principal, though, is portrayed as strident and unsympathetic, while Hero goes gaa-gaa over this boy doing such a "gallant" thing for her.

The word, wanton is described for children as "sleeping around." I like the description, "wanton," myself. The graffiti written about Hero in the bathroom is not described but only the most naive tween could miss that it was clearly very pornographic and crude. And then, we have the situation when cool-kid Dan is told that Hero went to church (another little white lie, anyway) and he laughs at the idea. Hero is not my hero.

This book gets my DaVinci Code rating: the fun read isn't worth the damage done...

When you see this book on the library's list of recommended, I'd cross it off unless you're feeling up to a lot of damage control...

Safety Rating: Davinci Pile

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Absolutely Normal Chaos by Sharon Creech

Imitating a 13 year old writing in a diary is a tricky art. Sharon Creech has mastered it. This is written as a journal that Mary Lou, the main character, was instructed to keep over the summer for next year's English teacher.

Mary Lou's summer highlights consist of important things at age 13: her best friend, a boyfriend, and family. The extra twist is that her cousin Carl Ray comes to stay at their house, and it's a mystery at first what he is doing there. Mary Lou comes to find out later. In addition, Mary Lou is reading The Odyssey over the summer and writes her witty comments on Odysseus's saga.

I wanted to like this book because Sharon Creech is a good writer and her character is witty, normal, zesty, and utterly believable. Her journal entries are all short enough and intriguing enough for even reluctant readers to buy into painlessly.
Unfortunately, there was minor nitpicking all the way up to major nitpicking to do on my part.

Minor: she kisses a boy quickly for curiosity's sake, and is thrilled when her summer boyfriend kisses her. She likes to use the word "God" and "Lord" casually. Her mother corrects her, and she switches to "Oh, Deity" or "Oh Alpha and Omega." There is no explanation for WHY her mom objects which is what matters. Her older sister buys a "skinny black dress with no back."

Major: There is a reference to her aunt moving away while she was pregnant with a casual, "I think they got married first." Her cousin, Carl Ray, came to live with them because this same aunt was, indeed, pregnant with him, and the man was not the man she married. When visiting this family, there is casual mention of a girl getting pregnant at 16, and a cousin gives her a book as a parting gift that is about sex. (that is all that is described).
It is the casual, matter-of-fact mention of these things that I find troubling. As my tween (who read it before I did and quite liked it) pointed out: she already knows this stuff happens and tweens do think about kissing. I had to point out that the casual acceptance was a loud message about how this author thinks about it, and I'm not buying it.
Also, what are 13 yr. olds doing dating? I'm just not a big fan of the idea. In fact, hormonal young people on unsupervised outings is not one the more brilliant outcomes of the sexual revolution.
My 13 year old isn't yet in the dating/boyfriend scene, so it was a teaching moment for discussing dating, courting, and marriage.

I object to the casual treatment of a major theme: extra-marital sex. Added to the effort to make normal giving a gift of a book on sex to someone you don't have a close relationship with, and the over-emphasis on boys and dating at an early age, I have to send this to the DaVinci pile.

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Feed by M.T. Anderson

Here is a science fiction novel that is billed as appealing to older boys. It is engaging and does provoke a response to its modern dilemma of constant distraction and entertainment at the expense of "an examined life" exaggerated in the sci-fi setting.

Teens are searching for fun in the start of this book. Their "feed" (a transmitter located in their brain) helps them to find it. In this case, they are starting on the moon.

During this escapade, Titus meets Violet, a girl who is a bit different. She didn't receive the feed at an early age like the rest of his crowd. She isn't quite as comfortable as the others who have had advertising and media control over them for as long as they can remember. When a man from a rebel group has "pity" on them and disconnects their feed at a local dance club, the contrast between thinking on their own and having their brain mesmerized by corporations begins to interrupt the life of the main character.

It does not end well. It is quite an indictment of our current culture in the tradition of Vonnegut and Wells.

Unlike Vonnegut or Bradbury, this is a modern read with all the language and sexual innuendo of our era. That is why I can't give it a recommendation. If your tween is quite familiar with pop culture, s/he will not be surprised at any of the language. And the language is not merely gratuitious. It actually helps show the shallow, dumbed-down effect of media on the culture. But it made me cringe. I was even more bothered by the sexual innuendo. By today's standards, it is probably mild enough at about PG-13. But I would not let my daughter read it.

It is a fine example of modern sci-fi and will intrigue the modern tween, but read it first. If you are a parent whose child is exposed to movies and television, it will be about the same level of language/sex he tweens are used to when immersed in the pop culture. At least the book will engage the brain and thinking and maybe spark a sci-fi interest that you can further with other authors. But if you're trying to set the bar a higher for your tween than what the pop culture embraces, this falls short of the mark in the arena of sexual innuendo and vulgar language.

Rating: DaVinci discard pile

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