Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, Tor, 2008.
ISBN: 978-0765323118

Plot Summary

When Marcus and his friends decide to skip school they get caught in the middle of a terrorist attack on San Francisco. After re-surfacing from a crowded BART station they are picked up by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who proceed to interrogate them for days in an unknown location. Marcus is relieved when he is finally set free but grieved when he cannot find his best friend Darryl who had been injured and no doubt tortured like Marcus by the DHS. Angered by the loss of his best friend and his civil liberties Marcus is determined to take his revenge on the DHS. Soon, with the help of other people who are tired of living in a police state, Marcus creates several brilliant plans to overthrow the DHS’s iron grip on the city. But can he pull it off with the DHS watching his constant move? And what will happen when the DHS and the city of San Francisco start attributing his acts to those of terrorists?

Critical Evaluation

While Little Brother can be overly technical and slightly didactic, it is a valuable book to read as many of its details mirror those found in the United States today. Through his book, Doctorow challenges readers to reconsider the safety of their identity and civil liberties. Mixing technology that can be found in the world today along with new innovative devices, Doctorow reveals a scarily possible “what if” scenario in Marcus’ beloved San Francisco. While Doctorow’s own opinions are clear throughout the novel he does include viewpoints that differ from his own, ones that are shockingly similar to those held by people today. For example, while Marcus and his mother are angered at the DHS’s increased surveillance and profiling, Marcus’ father’s philosophy is quite different. “If you don’t have anything to hide…” he tells Marcus one day naturally implying that if one has nothing to hide, one has nothing to fear (p. 123). Both the ideology of Marcus and his mother as well as Marcus’ father is present in the United States today, particularly in discussions about the Patriot Act and increased security by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Little Brother is certainly a thought-provoking book that will challenge readers of all ages to consider not only what values they hold dear but what they would do to protect them.

Reader’s Annotation

Upon release from an illegal prison Marcus swears to get his revenge on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who locked him up after a terrorist attack on the San Francisco Bay Bridge. With the help of his friends and others who want their civil liberties back, Marcus starts an underground revolution that is sure to either overturn the DHS or get himself killed.

About the Author

“Cory Doctorow…is a science fiction novelist, blogger and technology activist. He is the co-editor of the popular weblog Boing Boing (boingboing.net), and a contributor to The Guardian, the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Wired, and many other newspapers, magazines and websites. He was formerly Director of European Affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff.org), a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards and treaties. He is a Visiting Senior Lecturer at Open University (UK) and Scholar in Virtual Residence at the University of Waterloo (Canada); in 2007, he served as the Fulbright Chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California…His novels are published by Tor Books and HarperCollins UK and simultaneously released on the Internet under Creative Commons licenses that encourage their re-use and sharing, a move that increases his sales by enlisting his readers to help promote his work…He co-founded the open source peer-to-peer software company OpenCola, sold to OpenText, Inc in 2003, and presently serves on the boards and advisory boards of the Participatory Culture Foundation, the MetaBrainz Foundation, Technorati, Inc, the Organization for Transformative Works, Areae, the Annenberg Center for the Study of Online Communities, and Onion Networks, Inc”. His next YA novel will be Pirate Cinema.

When not writing Doctorow enjoys spending time with his wife, Alice, and his daughter, Poesy Emmeline Fibonacci Nautilus Taylor Doctorow.

Genre

Dystopian, Thriller

Curriculum Ties

This book would be perfect on a unit on intellectual freedom and terrorism.

Booktalk Ideas

--Start by saying something like “Imagine if there were devices installed in schools that would immediately identify you by your gait in order to prevent truancy. That is the sort of world Marcus lives in…”

--Ask the audience how they would feel if the Department of Homeland Security started to chip bus passes and transit cards, while tracking all purchases made on credit cards.

Reading Level/Interest Age

Reading Level: 6^th grade

Interest Level: 9^th grade + (14 yrs. +)

AR BookFinder (2010). Little brother. Retrieved from

Challenge Issues

There are many reasons why some may wish to challenge Little Brother as the novel depicts the use of waterboarding on a minor as well as several sensual scenes and disturbing sequences. There is also quite a bit of swearing and some may argue that Marcus is a poor role model. If challenged, librarians should explain collection development policy and explain how Little Brother can be used to make readers question their assumptions about their security. Librarians should point out how the book can to used to spur teens into researching security and intellectual freedom issues on their own which may or may not result in them agreeing with Doctorow’s suppositions.

Favorite Quotes

“I never believed in terrorists before—I mean, I knew that in the abstract there were terrorists somewhere in the world, but they didn’t really represent any risk to me. There were millions of ways that the world could kill me—starting with getting run down by a drunk burning his way down Valencia—that were infinitely more likely and immediate than terrorists. Terrorists kill a lot fewer people than bathroom falls and accidental electrocutions. Worrying about them always struck me as about as useful as worrying about getting hit by lightning.” (p. 41)

Why Was This Included?

I chose to include this book in my blog because it was required reading for class.