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Middle/high school dystopian novel recommendations (lemm.ee)

submitted 5 days ago by bdmayhem@lemm.ee to c/books@lemmy.ml

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I'm working on a dystopian literature class, and I'm looking for one more book to add to the curriculum. The kids are about 13, and somewhat sensitive to more adult topics. That's one of the reasons I've chosen not to assign 1984.

I had thought to assign The Maze Runner, but after reading it, I was underwhelmed, especially as a standalone book.

The other books we're reading are:

The Giver The Hunger Games Lord of the Flies Matched Ender's Game Fahrenheit 451 The Minority Report

Any thoughts? Thanks!

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[–] Patch@feddit.uk 2 points 3 days ago

Orwell's Animal Farm would seem like a good way to go. Not having any Orwell in a dystopian literature class would seem like a miss, and Animal Farm's heavy parable style sets it apart from the others in the list.

Off beat suggestion: The Lorax by Dr Seuss. It might be interesting to study dystopia aimed at younger children as part of a full exploration of the genre.

Possibly somewhat on-the-nose, but It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis is fairly timely.

Back with the classics, perhaps The Trial by Franz Kafka. Very effective and highly distilled form of dystopian text, boiled right down to its elements.

Shout out to The Last Man by Mary Shelley, which is a contender for the first true dystopian novel (certainly one of the first worth remembering).