Feed by M.T. Anderson

Feed is cautionary tale about the excesses of consumerism. It is set in a world where Americans live in idle luxury, w/ their every want easily satisfied by their "feed," an internet connection in their head that suggests to them what they want before they even know it themselves. As a result of American's lavish lifestyles the world, particularly the environment, suffers.

Feed's protagonist is Titus, an American teenager who, while on a trip to go partying on the moon, meets a girl name Violet, who helps him change the way he thinks about his world.

I really liked this book. The message was great, the story well told and the character's were realistic. Titus, Violet, their friends, they are all wonderfully flawed characters. Each one has his or her own short comings, which makes them so real, so easy to relate too. I was always pulling for Titus to make the right choices, but he's limited by his world-view, his upbringing, the culture he was raised in and his decisions through out the book reflect that. You can't expect a person to change over night and you can't expect a society change over night either. Overall an excellent book. Give this one to fans of dystopian science fiction at its finest.

Tim, Defender of the Earth by Sam Enthoven

The concept behind this book is freaking rad! A gigantic genetically engineered dinosaur battles an army of nanobots on the streets of London! Awesome right? Unfortunately not. While I understand that a certain willful suspension of disbelief is necessary for a book of this nature, this book is just ridiculous. A scientist in a secret government funded laboratory deep below the streets of London raises a genetically engineered hundred foot tall dinosaur named T.I.M.. When the new Prime Minister finds out about Tim he orders the project shut down and Tim exterminated. Of course, TIM escapes. causes havoc on the streets of London and then swims out to sea.

In the meantime the government decides to start funding another scientist, Professor Mallahide, who is working on nanotechnology. Apparently all he needed was for the government to say they were willing to fund him, because that night he turns himself into a nanobot swarm.

But wait, there is yet another plotline to follow. Chris, a middle school student from London, goes on a field trip with his class and while searching for a place to avoid doing any school work, finds himself in an unused corner of the musuem. While there, he is discovered by a security guard who forces an ancient bracelet on him from the museum's collection. Chris discovers that the bracelet cannot be removed. Later in the book Chris discovers that the bracelet also allows him to talk to Tim. Finally as a lucky coincidence Chris's classmate Anna is professor Mallahide's daughter.

Anyway long story short, Professor Mallahide turns out to be a bit crazy and starts turning everyone into nanobots. So Tim the giant T-Rex comes back to fight him, but to do that he needs Chris to use his bracelet to focus the willpower of humanity into strength for Tim. In response the Nanobots form into a gigantic cockroach / centaur creature and fight Tim.

I don't know what happens after that, because I stopped reading. Honestly the only reason I made it that far was because I was on an exercise bike and dedicated to riding it for two hours. I was a captive audience.

I have to admit this book did have some really rad parts, especially when Tim and the cockroach / centaur / nanobots were battling. But the nanobots, as they were portrayed, were really overpowered and have no excuse for not rapidly assimilating the whole world and everything on it into the nanobot swarm. A+ for the idea, D+ for the implementation.

Give this book to children whose concepts of reality and reasonability have been completely destroyed by hours and hours of video game play, grades 5 to 8.

Kingdom of Twilight by Tui Sutherland

Kingdom Twilight is the final installment in the Avatars trilogy and honestly it was a bit of a disappointment. The first book, So This Is How It Ends, immediately pulled me into the fantastic world it created kept me guessing what would happen until the very end. In the subsequent books, both the plot and the world seem to stagnate. More and more of the same is piled and on and the once exciting world Sutherland created begins to feel more and more two dimensional. The story often gets bogged down in pointless banter and one liners exchanged by the main characters and the story seems to drag on twice as long as necessary.

On the positive side this book explores the mythologies of cultures readers are likely to unfamiliar with, for example Sumeria, China, and various African and Polynesian cultures as well. The book also provided resolution and had a surprising twist at the end.

All in all Kingdom of Twilight was an okay book, but it really doesn't pass the first book test for me. And honestly, I recommend reading So This Is How It Ends, skipping the second book altogether and reading only bits and pieces of this book. Feel free to skim over the boring parts.
Recommend this book to children who have read the other two books in the Avatars series grades 5 to 8.

Found

An unscheduled airplane arrives at an airport terminal on board are 36 babies and no one else! Who are they? Where did they come from? No one no knows. Now skip forward 13 years to suburban Ohio, Jonah had never thought much of being adopted, but when he starts getting creepy letters that say things like "you are one of the missing," he starts wondering about his past. His adoption records have always been sealed, but maybe its time to investigate a little bit of his own. You see where this is going? Down a one way to street to freakin' awesome that's where!

I loved this book start to finish whenever I wasn't reading it I was thinking about reading it and now that I'm done reading it, I'm dreaming about reading the next book in the series (Sent to be released August 2009). Some authors just flat out know how to write and Magaret Haddix is one of those authors, she could write a book about making and toast and it would turn out awesome- with this kind of subject matter of course the book is great.
Give this book to Sci-Fi lovers grades 5 thru 9.