Wow- So I absolutely LOVED this book. I think it’s a great book to introduce to teens in this age of technology because it makes them think about what information they’re putting out there, and how technology can be used to either hurt them or help them. It also shows how each student can make a difference if they really try.
As a high schooler, I had a science fair project where we had to come up with something that would make our community better and then we had to get involved and try to put the plan in motion. (I was in an honor’s class- ick!) For the “getting involved” part of the project, we wrote a letter to our mayor, and nothing really came of it. So, I thought that there was really no way to get involved and that one little student can’t really make a difference in a big community. However, Little Brother proved me wrong. Marcus was able to create Xnet and basically overthrow the government. Even though the book seems to be set in the future, it’s a realistic future where our government puts us in a totalitarian state because of terrorists’ attacks.
Little Brother is like a modern day hippy story. In fact, in chapter 11, Marcus’s history teacher explains the movement that the original hippies went through in order to protest the Vietnam War. I thought it was clever that Cory Doctorow tied in “old-school” hippies with modern day hippies. If the reader hadn’t already made the connection, they would when Marcus said, “Suddenly, those lame, solemn, grown-up street demonstrations didn’t seem so lame after all. Maybe there was room for that kind of action in the Xnet movement.” (page 178)
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