Little Brother

Little Brother, a novel by Cory Doctrow, is a NY Times Bestseller but is available as free download ( http://craphound.com/littlebrother/ )

Billed as a Young Adult novel, even more "mature" readers will find this text appealing. I highly recommend reading it.

Little Brother is a thoughtful and powerful examination at our "civil rights" in our "war on terror" as well as the role that technology might play, whether for good or evil. Throughout this exploration, the novel provides a wonderful historical exploration of civil disobedience.

The novel also does a wonderful job of exploring how institutions, especially educational ones impact both our discussions of and the shaping of civic freedoms and the notion of civic responsibility. Further, Doctrow uses the novel as a venue to explore both issues of privacy and issues of government brutality.

While the book tackles some heavy issues it's characters are like most any character a teenager would been in high school or college, which is part of the appeal to young adults. But the book does a good job of exploring why civil liberties, privacy, and freedom should be important to today's ever increasingly wired teenagers. (read less)