They Called Themselves the K.K.K.

[TAYSHAS pick]

They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: the Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Bartoletti takes the reader on a well-researched, thorough journey from the K.K.K.’s inception to its ultimate legal demise. The power of this book lies in its authentic stories from firsthand accounts of those who had run-ins with the terrorist group. Also, Bartoletti includes an abundance of photographs, illustrations, and maps to provide us with genuineness and immediacy of the narrative.

A Civil Rights Time Line, Quote Attributions, Bibliography and Source Notes, and Index are included in the back of the book. They Called Themselves the K.K.K. is excellent, meticulous non-fiction that is appropriate for middle school readers and beyond.

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

[TAYSHAS pick]

Firstly, let me say that I was a bit sad when this book ended—luckily, it was right around the time when Sapphique, the sequel, was released, so I ordered the sequel even though I was not entirely satisfied with some elements of Incarceron.

Incarceron involves two plots woven together—that of Finn, a prisoner of Incarceron, and Claudia, the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron who lives outside the prison. Much of the novel vacillates between the two storylines. Incarceron is a prison created to entirely sustain itself; it seems to be endless and when people die in Incarceron, they are recycled. Factions, families, and entire cities are built in Incarceron; the “outside” placed the riffraff of society there generations ago and left them to rot, essentially.

Finn “wakes up” at a certain time and is suddenly in the prison. While he becomes assimilated in the prison, he does not remember a childhood in the prison; in fact, he gets flashes and episodes in which memories of an outside world come to him. Thusly, he believes there is an outside, and that is where he belongs. He and some of his friends find a crystal key that they believe will aid them in reaching the outside, and there begins their arduous journey.

The key, incidentally enough, is magical, and allows the prisoners to communicate with whomever holds the original copy on the Outside. The person holding that key is Claudia, the daughter of the Warden. She is contracted to marry a man she does not love, and she is desperate to find a way out of the marriage. Claudia becomes the target of many intrigues and plots, but once she finds out about Finn and his plight, she becomes anxious to help him escape the prison. But where is Incarceron? The location is and always has been a well-kept secret.

Incarceron is indeed a well-paced and engrossing novel; while I ignored the gaping holes in the logic of physics exercised towards the end (when we learn where Incarceron is located), I still enjoyed the novel. Finn is just heroic enough and just human enough; Claudia, a strong, maybe too strong, female character.

Brain Jack by Brian Falkner

[Lone Star Pick]

Brain Jack is a very specialized novel that involves technical language—luckily, I love that kind of stuff, so I found all the jargon very interesting. The novel is obviously extremely farfetched, but I suspended belief for the time I read it and enjoyed it for what it was—pure fiction.

Sam Wilson is a high school kid who also happens to be a genius computer hacker. When he pulls off a hack that leaves even the government scratching it heads, he is recruited by a top government agency to work for them. However, when this agency and other users begin to use a new technology, called a headset, that relies on brain power to activate computer commands, the technology goes awry and begins to control the humans. Sam, a purist who does not necessarily need or want to use a headset, is one of the few who realizes this, and it is up to him to save the world, essentially. Car chases, a nuclear bombed-out Las Vegas, and computer trickery abound.

I think the premise of the novel is a sound one—that technology can take over our lives if we are not careful to ensure we are using it to supplement our tasks, not take over them.

Reading excerpt: http://amcabu.podbean.com/2011/01/17/brain-jack-excerpt/