Parenthetical.net

As a desperate attempt to engage his lazy, inattentive 7th grade math class (hey, Hauntmeister, this one’s for you!), Mr. Collins forms an afterschool club at his inner-city Cleveland school. Their mission? Build a 7-level tetrahedron, to beat the 6-level record. Four African-American kids (two boys and two girls) join for a [...]

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Grown-up book! I picked this one up because the back reads, and I quote, “The rich and the privileged have fled the city, barricaded it behind roadblocks, and left it to crumble. The inner city has had to rediscover old ways — farming, barter, herb lore.” Near-future SF and self-sufficient urban community? [...]

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Sixteen-year-old Hattie was orphaned as a small child and has been bouncing from relative to relative ever since. When an uncle she’s never met dies and leaves her his 320-acre Montana claim, with only one year left to prove up on it before ownership reverts back to the government, she sees her chance to [...]

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Some friends and I went to see Prince Caspian last night, the second in the series of Narnia movies. First of all, let me say that it was way better than The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. LWW was awfully clean and shiny for a story that’s basically about a big war [...]

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I haven’t posted in awhile because I’ve been reading Inkheart, which is 534 pages long and therefore about 4 times as long as most of the books I read these days. But I managed to stay awake on my commute this morning to finish the book — which is a testament to Funke’s skill, [...]

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Dear internet,
Please, please stop hyping Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother. You’re making it sound like you’ve never read YA science fiction before, which seems unlikely since some of you write it. It’s the most inspiring book ever written! I get it! I’ll read it already! But shut up about it before [...]

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Eli’s mother has gone insane from Huntington’s disease, and his dad is ever more distant. Instead of applying to college, Eli drunkenly begs an old family acquaintance for a job — Dr. Wyatt, the famous geneticist. Dr. Wyatt hires him as a lab assistant, and Eli can’t believe his good fortune.
But it turns [...]

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