Devil on my Back

I'd share this with Third Years - their imagination and thinking will be gripped by it. Tomi is a Young Lord, 14 and eligible to begin accessing all knowledge through infopaks implanted in his neck. During a slave revolt, he ends up outside the City of ArcOne, washed many miles down river. Neither his privileged status nor his infopaks are of any use now. His rescue, learning of survival skills and more importantly of the nature of ArcOne, his growing self-knowledge and the shaping of his mission make compulsive reading. The ending, with some surprises for Tomi and the reader, moves towards 'real dreams - of how they might reach out and risk and learn to live, to make Earth green and beautiful once more.' LeGuin's The Word for World is Forest would be a useful partner text. Both are well-made science fiction, speaking through other times and places about here and now.