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Unwind dystology

2/29/2016

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Book Trailer
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Book Trailer
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If you like Dystopian novels like Hunger Games and Divergent or you like stories with multiple titles in the series, you have hit the jackpot with Neal Shusterman's Unwind Dystology.  If I were still teaching English, I would like to included at least one of these books in my curriculum.

Unwind, the first book in the series, begins sometime in the not too distant future.after a second Civil War in America fought over the issue of abortion.  A compromise to end the fighting is the Bill of Life which states that human life may not be touched from the moment of conception until a child reaches the age of thirteen. However, a loophole allows parents to retroactively get rid of a teenager through a process called “unwinding.”  The entire human body is separated into various parts for the transplant market.

Three teens defy the system and run away from their unwinding. Connor, who becomes known as the Akron AWOL, is a rebel whose parents have ordered his unwinding. Risa is a ward of the state who is to be unwound due to necessary cost-cutting measures in a state institution. Lev, his parents’ tenth child, has had his unwinding planned since birth as a religious tithing.

Although this may seem a little far fetched, many of the issues in the series could be pulled from today's news.  In fact, Shusterman has included many articles in the text of the story.  For example there are places right now where "feral" teens create real problems in urban settings.  

The "Parts Pirates" in the story already exist in the blackmarket for human organs.

Do translated organs carry cellular memory?  For example could personality changes occur after a heart transplant?  There have been numerous instances of this effect. 

Right now researchers are working on 3D printers that can use a person's own cells to reproduce organs for transplant.  Think what this would mean to the 121,000 Americans on the waiting list for organ transplants.  On average 21 people a day die while waiting for an organ.

Do corporate and governmental entities block developments that could hurt the financial well-being to these entities?  For example would the government prevent automobiles in this country that are "too fuel efficient"?  (The answer is yes.)

Is it possible to create a person out of a collection of human parts?  Would this be ethical? Would this person have a soul?

These are some of the issues in this series of books, but don't think it is all intellectual and philosophical.  It is also a thrill-ride adventure and survival story.

UnDivided was supposed to be the final chapter in the series, but recently UnBound was published.  It is actually a collection of short stories and novellas focusing on some of the characters other than Connor and Risa.

Neal Shusterman talks about where he got his ideas for the books.

Awards and Honors:
  •  2008 ALA Best Books For Young Adults
  •  2008 ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults (Top Ten)
  •  ALA Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
  •   New York Public Library "Books for the Teen Age"
  •  2009-2010 Virginia Readers’ Choice Award Master List
  • 2011 YALSA’s Popular Paperback Award List
We have lots of other dystopian novels in our library.  Here is a list of a few that I would recommend.

If you are looking for more selections in dystopian fiction, you might try the following:
  • Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
  • Divergent series by Veronica Roth
  • Matched series by Ally Condi
  • The Books of Ember series by Jeanne DuPrau
  • Shadow Children series by Margaret Peterson Haddix
  • Green Angel series by Alice Hoffman
  • Article 5 series by Kristen Simmons
  • Killer of Enemies series by Joseph Bruchac
  • The Giver series by Lois Lowery
If you would like to try some classics in dystopian literature, take at look at these titles:
  • 1984 by George Orwell
  • Animal Farm by George Orwell
  • Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  • Anthem by Ayn Rand
  • Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
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Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary - Updated

11/13/2015

 
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Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary by Gail Jarrow is a very interesting look at the efforts to fight the spread of typhoid in New York City and the surrounding area at the turn of the twentieth century.  The most famous case of a healthy carrier was that of Mary Mallon, a young Irish immigrant who made her living as a cook.  Mary is believed to have sickened dozens of people and caused at least three deaths.  The exact totals are not known because Mary would not cooperate with authorities by revealing all of her employers or all the aliases under which she had worked.

Mary, too, was a victim.  She spent more than three decades in isolation on North Brother Island in the middle of the East River in New York City at a facility that was intended to treat tuberculosis patients.  Even today experts debate how Mary's case was handled.  At the time of her death in 1938, there  were at least 400 carriers identified in New York, but she was the only one forced to live in isolation.  Book Trailer

​
Awards and Honors
  • ​Booklist Best Young Adult Books of 2015
  • 2016 CCBC Choices–Historical People, Places, and Events
  • 2015 Cybils Awards Nomination, Elementary / Middle Grade Nonfiction
  • Junior Library Guild selection

I just finished reading Fever: A Novel of Typhoid Mary by Mary Beth Keane.  I was interested to see how the author would handle this historical fiction.  In comparing the information in the two books, I found that for the most part, Keane stuck to the known facts of Mary's life.  There were some minor changes in the ages of those who supposedly died after contracting typhoid from her cooking.  Of course, as fiction writers do, she was able to develop the character of Mary, to portray her as a real person not just a medical anomaly or a pariah to be feared an locked away from the public.

Awards and Honors
  • Mary Beth Keane was named one of the 5 Under 35 best authors by the National Book Foundation

If you enjoy real life medical mysteries, you will enjoy this fast-reading nonfiction book.  You might also enjoy the following books from the TAHS library:
  • An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy
  • Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America by Susan Campbell Bartoletti (Nonfiction)
  • The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skioot

    Author

    I am a former high school English teacher and now a high school librarian.

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