Unwind, by Neal Shusterman, is also in the Top Ten of the 2008 Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers list. This excellent work of science fiction is set in the future after the Second Civil War, where to settle the fighting between the Pro-life and Pro-choice armies they passed "The Bill of Life" which states that a child may not be harmed between conception and age thirteen, but between ages thirteen and eighteen parents can choose to "unwind" their child and donate their body parts. This story follows three teenagers who are scheduled to be "unwound", as well as several other people they interact with. Connor ran away in the hope that he could survive until his eighteenth birthday and live. He caused a commotion on the highway where the Juvey-cops were shooting tranq-guns at him, and this caused a bus carrying teens to a Harvest Camp to crash. Risa escaped from that bus and joined up with Connor in the woods. Lev was riding in a car on the highway when Connor grabbed him and held him hostage to get them to stop shooting at him. Lev was a tithe, which means his parents decided a long time ago that he would be "unwound" on his thirteenth birthday as a gift back to God. The story continued to focus on these three as they were assisted in an underground network to eventually arrive at The Graveyard, an airplane graveyard in the Arizona desert where four hundred Unwinds live and work until they turn eighteen. Events occur which lead these three to a Harvest Camp, but they get away after an explosion. At the end of the book, they feel a sense of hope that public opinions about unwinding are changing. More and more people are letting themselves think about Unwinds as human beings, not throwaways. This book teaches about being responsible for the choices you make. It makes the reader ask questions about the sanctity of human life and the possibility that your soul would live on in every part of your body long after your death. This was a fascinating book and its subject matter is not as far-fetched as many people would probably like to believe.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Unwind
Unwind, by Neal Shusterman, is also in the Top Ten of the 2008 Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers list. This excellent work of science fiction is set in the future after the Second Civil War, where to settle the fighting between the Pro-life and Pro-choice armies they passed "The Bill of Life" which states that a child may not be harmed between conception and age thirteen, but between ages thirteen and eighteen parents can choose to "unwind" their child and donate their body parts. This story follows three teenagers who are scheduled to be "unwound", as well as several other people they interact with. Connor ran away in the hope that he could survive until his eighteenth birthday and live. He caused a commotion on the highway where the Juvey-cops were shooting tranq-guns at him, and this caused a bus carrying teens to a Harvest Camp to crash. Risa escaped from that bus and joined up with Connor in the woods. Lev was riding in a car on the highway when Connor grabbed him and held him hostage to get them to stop shooting at him. Lev was a tithe, which means his parents decided a long time ago that he would be "unwound" on his thirteenth birthday as a gift back to God. The story continued to focus on these three as they were assisted in an underground network to eventually arrive at The Graveyard, an airplane graveyard in the Arizona desert where four hundred Unwinds live and work until they turn eighteen. Events occur which lead these three to a Harvest Camp, but they get away after an explosion. At the end of the book, they feel a sense of hope that public opinions about unwinding are changing. More and more people are letting themselves think about Unwinds as human beings, not throwaways. This book teaches about being responsible for the choices you make. It makes the reader ask questions about the sanctity of human life and the possibility that your soul would live on in every part of your body long after your death. This was a fascinating book and its subject matter is not as far-fetched as many people would probably like to believe.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment