A Nothing Named Silas
Designed to appeal to the massive Hunger Games audience, this first in a series tells the story of Silas, a teen groomed from birth for leadership, who is instead chosen to work as a laborer. However, as he gradually discovers, the radical change in his destiny was no random accident, and he is still being groomed, this time by the shadowy Gideon, for something more important than Silas could possibly have imagined. The story’s near-future world is appropriately dystopian: children are selected by Regents to live in various segregated divisions (Agriculture, Command, Labor, etc.), each of which is protected under a Shield, a sort of camouflaged electronic dome that protects it from the prying eyes of the Citizens, with whom the divisions have a long and occasionally violent history. Rather than clog the narrative with chunks of exposition, the author parcels out information about Silas’ world slowly, mostly through dialogue; as he learns about his world and its history, so do we. A somewhat derivative (The Giver as well as Hunger Games) but engaging enough take on coming-of-age in dystopia. Grades 7-10. --David Pitt