Little Brother
By Cory DoctorowSelected for San Francisco's One City One Book project this fall, I found many copies of Little Brother at my neighborhood SFPL and decided to check it out.
Glad I did!
I love that the setting is San Francisco; I love that Marcus, the 17-year-old genius hacker protagonist, lives in Portrero Hill and goes to high school in the Mission. Even eats pizza from Goat Hill pizzeria!
But mostly I love that in this dystopian story, a bunch of smart kids are able to go up against a Department-of-Homeland-Security-gone-bad and stand up for their constitutional rights to privacy and free speech.
If you love real-life stories of hacking security systems and exposing hard-to-hear truths, you will appreciate the techno-battle Marcus fights against his own government, which claims to be protecting the citizens of San Francisco from terrorism.
Recommended for ages 13 and up.
