Little Brother

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, ISBN 9780765319852, Tor Teen: Tom Doherty Associates, 2008, 382 pages

Teaser: A computer hacker is mistakenly taken for a terrorist in his hometown.  

Plot Summary: Little Brother is the story of hacker teen, Marcus, who thinks he knows the system and how to work around it.  For example he knows that the school cameras track your particular gait, so he devises a plan to fool the computer by walking differently when he passes a camera so the camera can't detect his natural gait.  Then one day Marcus and his two friends are in the wrong place at the wrong time.  They are playing a hacker game when San Francisco is hit with a terrorist attack.  The Bay Bridge has been blown up.  Marcus and his friends are captured by the Department of Homeland Security and kept for questioning for several days.  When Marcus finally gets out he decides to use technology to reclaim democracy from the DHS. Along the way he meets his girlfriend Angela and she helps him design a makeshift internet with his game console.  Marcus and his friends learn a lot about growing up and facing the government in this book.
Critical Evaluation:  Doctorow does a great job of turning his characters into realistic teens with realistic hopes and dreams.  We see Marcus as a typical teen, just a boy that wants to get laid and knows a lot about technology and wants justice and revenge.  Older teens will be able to identify with the characters and their desire to take it to the man and defy authority. 

Author Information: According to http://craphound.com/bio.php "Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger -- the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the author of Tor Teens/HarperCollins UK novels like FOR THE WIN and the bestselling LITTLE BROTHER. He is the former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in London."

Genre: Science Fiction, Distopian Literature

Curriculum Ties: N/A

Booktalking Ideas: Talk about how the characters ban together in the wake of a terrorist attack.

Reading Level/Interest Age: 14+

Challenge Issues: This book may be challenged due to teenage sex, terrorism and brutality towards young adults.  If the book was challenged I would go to, ALA's Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library Materials.

Why included? I usually do not read books about hackers and such, but this book was required for class and I surprised myself by enjoying my time reading it.