Feed by M. T. Anderson

"I cried, sitting by her bed, and I told her the story of us. 'It's about the feed,' I said. 'It's about this meg normal guy, who doesn't think about anything until one wacky day, when he meets a dissident with a heart of gold.' I said, 'Set against the backdrop of American in its final days, it's the high-spirited story of their love together, it's laugh-out-loud funny, really heartwarming, and a visual feast."

In a time, not to far in the future, almost everybody has a 'feed'. A transmitter implanted directly into your brain, the feed enables you to communicate instantaneously with any other user, making conversation unnecessary. The feed can find the answer to any question for you, making school unnecessary. And, above all, the feed is a marvelous tool for making all of those important shopping decisions. When Titus, an "meg normal" guy meets Violet, an unusual girl, he begins to understand some unsettling things about his America. Anderson has created an entertaining, yet chilling, satire about where our country--and our youth--are headed. This book belongs on any bookshelf with Huxley, Orwell, and Vonnegut. For a truly enjoyable experiences, listen to the audio book, which adds a special zing to all of that consumerism.

SLJ recommends grades 8 and up.

Learn more at HCL and here.

Code Orange by Caroline B. Cooney

"Scab particles were in Mitty Blake's fingerprints. He had wiped them on his cheek and rubbed them against his nose. He had breathed them in.
Every virus, although not quite alive, nevertheless has a shelf "life". The shelf life of some viruses is known; the shelf life of others is uncertain.
In this case, it was the shelf life of Mitchell John Blake that was uncertain."

As usual, Mitty Blake, mediocre high school student, has procrastinated again. While attempting to scrape together enough information to write his biology paper, he discovers an envelope filled with--ew--antique scabs. Only later does he realize what they are and what he may have done by touching them. As if coming down with an incurable disease was not enough, now mysterious men are after him. Are they government agents or terrorists? Does Mitty have a sore throat or small pox? Does the fate of the planet lie in the hands of a D student and a long forgotten envelope?

SLJ recommends grades 7 and up.

Learn more at HCL, Amazon, and here.

Rash by Pete Hautman

"Back when Gramps was in high school, kids ran faster. Gramps claimed to have run 100 meters in 11 seconds, and the mile in 4:37. That was before the Child Safety Act of 2033. Now every high school runner has to wear a full set of protective gear--AtherSafe shoes with lateral ankle support and four layers of memory gel in the thick soles, knee pads, elbow pads, neck brace, tooth guard, wrist monitor, and an FDHHSS-cerified sports helmet. We raced on an Adzorbium track with its five centimeters of compacted gel-foam topped by a thick sheet of artificial latex. It's like running on a sponge."

In a not too distant future when the USA has become the USSA--the United Safer States of America, when obesity is a felony, and when 24% of the American population is imprisoned for acts of unsafe behavior, Bo is just a teenage boy struggling to obey the rules. After unintentionally spreading a psychosomatic rash through his school, Bo is sent to prison. For a young man raised in a highly supervised safer society, the anonymity of life in his prison camp is only slightly less tolerable than the intentional danger the warden is about to expose him to. His only way out might be an artificial intelligence homework assignment gone wrong. Pete Hautman challenges us to take a look at our current society of safety and wonder where it will take us in just a few short years.

SLJ recommends grades 8 and up.

Learn more at HCL, Amazon, and here.

Midnighters Volume 3: Blue Noon by Scott Westerfeld

"Then it struck, washing through the gymnasium, sweeping away the puny energies of the pep rally, obliterating the surrounding mind noise of Bixby.... She opened her eyes and saw what had happened. The blue light, the frozen bodies, a leaping cheerleader hovering suspended in the air. The whole world struck by...silence."

Set in Bixby, Oklahoma, a small band of teenagers can experience an extra hour in each day. At exactly midnight time stops for the "daylighters". But for the "midnighters" each night offers a romp in a frozen world of blue light. However, the midnighters aren't alone in the blue time. Each night in the hour between 12:00 and 12:01 they are stalked by darklings--shape shifting carnivores who are as old as time. And if that weren't enough, by day our heroes must brave high school! One part sci-fi, one part horror, and one part teenage drama, this series will appeal to Buffy fans...and, undoubtedly, to fans of Westerfeld's other novels.

Blue Moon is the third installment in Westerfeld's Midnighter's series. Begin with the Secret Hour and move on to Touching Darkness if you want to read them in order.

Learn more at HCL, Barnes & Nobel, and here.

SLJ recommends grades 6 and up.