Futuristic

The Testing

Posted on October 15, 2018 by webmaster

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The Testing
by Joelle Charbonneau

Like almost every 16-year-old in the United Commonwealth, Cia Vale hopes to be called for the Testing, her ticket out of rural Five Lakes Colony and into the University in Tosu City. Cia's father was selected, but only vaguely remembers the experience in nightmares. Her four older brothers were passed over. Just when she has resigned herself to life as a mechanic or farmer, she gets word that she is one of four students selected from Five Lakes and is expected to board the skimmer to Tosu City the next day, most likely never to return.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
830L	Middle School	352	Thriller/Suspense	2013	9780547959108

George Washington’s Socks

Posted on July 18, 2017 by webmaster

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The Yearling
by Elvira Woodruff

A mysterious rowboat transports five adventurous kids back in time to the eve of the Battle at Trenton where they experience the American Revolution. Through encounters with Hessian soldiers, revolutionaries, and even George Washington himself, Matthew, Quentin, Hooter, Tony, and Katie watch history unfold before their eyes as they see first-hand, the grim realities of war and the cost of freedom.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
840L	Middle School	176	Historic Fiction	1993	0590440365

Matched

Posted on October 1, 2013 by webmaster

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Matched
by Ally Condie

Cassia Reyes is a model student, daughter, and citizen. How could she not be when the Society has everything planned and functioning perfectly? All of her needs are met: food, shelter, education, career training, and even her future husband are selected by officials who know what is best for each individual by studying statistical data and probable odds.

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She even knows when she will die, on her 80th birthday, just as the Society dictates. At her Match Banquet she is paired with Xander, her best friend and certainly her soul mate. But when a computer error shows her the face of Ky, an Aberration, instead of Xander, cracks begin to appear in the Society’s facade of perfection. A series of events also shakes her dedication to Xander and puts her future in jeopardy.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
680L	Middle School	400	Thriller/Suspense	2010	014241977X

Flip

Posted on October 1, 2013 by webmaster

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Flip
by Martyn Bedford

Alex Gray, a clarinet and chess-playing sensitive kid from a London suburb, wakes up one day in a much more muscular and athletic body known as Philip “Flip” Garamond.

Alex struggles with the disadvantages and begins to enjoy a few advantages of being someone he is not. Should he try to find his way back? Can he? Where is his own body? And is it even alive?

About the only one who recognizes Alex to NOT be Flip is the Garamond family retriever, Beagle, who gives him a growl each time he sees him. Soon, though, Alex finds friends on the web — folks who have experienced something called PE (no, not physical education — psychic evacuation) like him.

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It’s when a soul jumps the rails and lands in another body due to extreme physical duress or death of its own. Is it any wonder why Alex hesitates to type his own name in the Google search box? How would you like to read your own obit? Flip begins to perplex family and friends alike with some “new” habits (really his old ones).

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
720L	High School	272	Thriller/Suspense	2021	0375865527

Unidentified

Posted on September 28, 2013 by webmaster

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The Unidentified
by Rae Mariz

In a startlingly plausible dystopian society, the school system has failed to the point that the government gives over control of national education to corporations. These conglomerates have banded together to create what are known as Game Centers. Here students like Katey Dade, or Kid, go to “school” in refurbished shopping malls. They swipe cards to get in and out, they carry issued cell phones with GPS trackers, they post continuously to profile pages and status feeds (similar to Facebook and Twitter), while administrators and corporate officials monitor their every move.

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Students who achieve the highest scores in games, set the coolest fashion trends, and gain the utmost popularity are “Branded”, instantly assisting the corporations to plug their wares. Kid coasts, never looking to become Branded, but then she is taken up by not just one corporate sponsor, but two, as a “trendspotter”.

As she tries to balance new expectations with betrayals by lifelong friends and new relationships, Kid also begins to question the societal structure around her. Drawn to the prank-pulling group calling themselves The Unidentified, she longs for her previous anonymity and blissful ignorance of the shady dealings all around her.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
780	High School	304	Fantasy	2010	0061802085

Handmaiden’s Tale

Posted on September 23, 2013 by webmaster

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Handmaiden’s Tale
by Margaret Atwood

This is a fable of the near future. In the Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, far-right ideals have been carried to extremes in a mono-theocratic government. The resulting society is a feminist’s nightmare: women are strictly controlled, unable to have jobs or money and assigned to various classes: the chaste, childless Wives; the housekeeping Marthas; and the reproductive Handmaids, who turn their offspring over to the “morally fit” Wives.

The tale is told by Offred (read: ‘of Fred’), a Handmaid who recalls the past and tells how the chilling society came to be

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
750L	Middle School School	392	Science Fiction	2006	0307264602

Feed

Posted on September 23, 2013 by webmaster

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Feed
by M. T. Anderson

Teen narrator Titus never questions his world, in which parents select their babies’ attributes in the conceptionarium, corporations dominate the information stream, and kids learn to employ the feed more efficiently in School. But everything changes when he and his pals travel to the moon for spring break. There Titus meets home-schooled Violet, who thinks for herself, searches out news and asserts that “Everything we’ve grown up with the stories on the feed, the games, all of that it’s all streamlining our personalities so we’re easier to sell to.”

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“Chats” flow privately from mind to mind; Titus flies an “upcar”; people go “mal” (short for “malfunctioning”) in contraband sites that intoxicate by scrambling the feed; and, after Titus and his friends develop lesions, banner ads and sitcoms dub the lesions the newest hot trend, causing one friend to commission a fake one and another to outdo her by getting cuts all over her body.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
770L	High School	288	Science Fiction	2009	0763622591

Unwind

Posted on September 18, 2013 by webmaster

Unwind
by Neal Shusterman

Connor’s parents want to be rid of him because he’s a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev’s unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family’s strict religion. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation, these three unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can’t be harmed — but when every piece of them, from their hands to their hearts, are wanted by a world gone mad, eighteen seems far, far away.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
740L	Middle School	352	Thriller/Suspense	2009	1416912057

Hunger Games

Posted on September 17, 2013 by webmaster

The Hunger Games

by Suzanne Collins

In a not-too-distant future, the United States of America has collapsed, weakened by drought, fire, famine, and war, to be replaced by Panem, a country divided into the Capitol and 12 districts. Each year, two young representatives from each district are selected by lottery to participate in The Hunger Games. Part entertainment, part brutal intimidation of the subjugated districts, the televised games are broadcasted throughout Panem as the 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors, literally, with all citizens required to watch.

When 16-year-old Katniss’s young sister, Prim, is selected as the mining district’s female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart, Peeta, the son of the town baker who seems to have all the fighting skills of a lump of bread dough, will be pitted against bigger, stronger representatives who have trained for this their whole lives.

How to Access the Lesson:

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Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
810L	High School	384	Fantasy	2008	0439023481

Specials

Posted on September 17, 2013 by webmaster

The Specials (The Uglies Trilogy – Book 3)
by Scott Westerfield

Tally Youngblood lives in a futuristic society that acculturates its citizens to believe that they are ugly until age 16 when they’ll undergo an operation that will change them into pleasure-seeking “pretties.” Anticipating this happy transformation, Tally meets Shay, another female ugly, who shares her enjoyment of hover-boarding and risky pranks. But Shay also disdains the false values and programmed conformity of the society and urges Tally to defect with her to the Smoke, a distant settlement of simple-living conscientious objectors. Tally declines, yet when Shay is found missing by the authorities, Tally is coerced by the cruel Dr. Cable to find her and her compatriots –or remain forever “ugly.”

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Tally’s adventuresome spirit helps her locate Shay and the Smoke. It also attracts the eye of David, the aptly named youthful rebel leader to whose attentions Tally warms. However, she knows she is living a lie, for she is a spy who wears an eye-activated locator pendant that threatens to blow the rebels’ cover.

Other Books in the Trilogy

Click here to view The Uglies – Book One

Click here to view The Pretties – Book Two

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
770L	Middle School	448	Science Fiction	2005	0689865384

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