Technology, ethics, and some damn good reads

A friend asked me recently to suggest a book for a high school class - something off the beaten curriculum, something with teeth-sink-into-able issues, something with the appeal of The Hunger Games that hadn't been read out yet and, most importantly, something NOT ANCIENT (but maybe available in paperback).

Immediately, my mind jumped to Little Brother. I really do not understand why this book is not as big as The Hunger Games. Cory Doctorow has a cult-like following in the adult world, and the book did indeed make it to the NYT bestseller list, but somehow it doesn't fly off the shelf at the library at the rate we expected.

It's one of the best teen books I've read in ages, a story that only gets more relevant as our governments use the terrrorism scare to erode civil liberties. This cautionary dystopia is made even more chilling by the fact that it seems to be set about three weeks in the future. Didactic? Yes, without question. But so relevant, precisely-aimed and well-crafted that it remains a work a literature. And a profoundly readable one at that.

After a terrorist attack on the Bay Area transit system, 17 year old Marcus Yallow and his friends are picked up and questioned by the Department of Homeland Security based on suspicious activity like being in the area, demanding help for an injured friend, and refusing to give up the password on an encrypted phone. When Marcus defends his right to his own privacy, he is detained and tortured in what is later referred to as "Guantanamo by the sea." When the friends are finally released, the Department of Homeland Security has turned San Francisco into a police state.

From high-tech gait-recognition cameras to the hacking of the xBox, technology plays both sides in this struggle for freedom and privacy in a world of surveillance. Plenty to talk about here. The e-book is available for free download on the author's website. A great modern-day companion to 1984.

Another great technology-meets-ethics book is The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson (Henry Holt, 2008). In a more distant future, Jenna (also 17) awakes after a terrible accident with absolutely no memory of her previous life. She tries to reconstruct her previous existence, but things don't seem to add up. Her parents, if they really are her parents, are hiding things from her. She struggles to escape her parents' over-protective confines and discover who, or what, she is. A story about the limits of technology, and the limits of humanity. A fabulous read with ample sparks for conversation and debate.