The Hunger Games has hit it big in the theaters as of late. As an English teacher and coincidental media specialist, I love when movies get people talking about books. While the technology of movies rarely surpasses the magic of imagination, I hear the Hunger Games is an exception. Almost every review has been positive.
The Hunger Games series comes along in a long line of dystopia novels. I can chunk my childhood reading and my time in the classroom by the novel of the day. Many of these live on my bookshelf next to me.
There’s something about the dystopia novels that attracts young readers, as well as a wider audience. There’s something about a utopia that doesn’t quite work that makes us more appreciative of where we are today.
One novel of note that I like to share is Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother. (This novel is available for download in basically every format under a Creative-Common Attribution-Noncommerical-Share-Alike license.)
As we talk about integrating technology into everything we do, down to the desktops of our children, Little Brother paints a cautionary tale. As a modern-day 1984, this book will get you thinking. Read this synopsis from the Little Brother website.
“Little Brother is a scarily realistic adventure about how homeland security technology could be abused to wrongfully imprison innocent Americans. A teenage hacker-turned-hero pits himself against the government to fight for his basic freedoms. This book is action-packed with tales of courage, technology, and demonstrations of digital disobedience as the technophile’s civil protest.” -Andrew “bunnie” Huang, author of Hacking the Xbox
How many of the books below have you read? What common theme carries over through each of them?
Dystopian Novels…
- 1931: Brave New World
- 1938: Anthem
- 1949: 1984
- 1953: Fahrenheit 451
- 1954: Lord of the Flies
- 1962: A Wrinkle in Time (series)
- 1984: Ender’s Game
- 1993: The Giver (series)
- 1998: Among the Hidden (series)
- 2002: House of the Scorpion
- 2003: City of Ember (series)
- 2005: Uglies (series)
Looking for more? Check out
50+ Fantastic Young Adult Dystopian Novels on Bart’s Bookshelf