Text Messages: Recommendations for Adolescent Readers

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Episode 2—Teen Time Travel
Readers with an interest in science fiction—or those who are simply curious about what the future may hold—will surely find something they like in this episode. Each book presents a different vision of what life in the future may be like, both for better and for worse.

Featured Title: Unwind by Neal Shusterman (Simon and Schuster, 2007)

A 2008 YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, Unwind is a novel that will have readers absorbed in its well-developed characters and thrilling plot as they read ... and ready to talk about the issues it raises for days after finishing it. Shusterman presents a vision of the future that is both engaging and disturbing.

Additional Recommendations

• Feed by M.T. Anderson (Candlewick, 2002); audiobook read by David Aaron Baker (Random House Audio, 2003)
• The Giver by Lois Lowry (Bantam, 1993)
• Taken by Edward Bloor (Knopf, 2007)
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (Harper Perennial, 1932)
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (Anchor, 1985)

Encourage adolescent readers to read more than one recommended book and then help them use the ReadWriteThink Venn Diagram Tool or the Compare & Contrast Map to form a response to two different visions of the future!

About the Host

Scott Filkins, who firmly believes that reading a good book is one of life’s great joys, worked with a diverse group of teens for nine years as a high school English teacher.

Committed to finding the right books for the readers in his classes, Scott worked with his school librarian to provide engaging reading material for all his students and would frequently buy popular books for independent reading time in his classroom. He started an after school book club called Readers and Leaders to encourage reading outside the classroom. Scott also volunteers for an organization that provides free books to prisoners in the state of Illinois.