All Good Children (edition 2011)

In Catherine Austen's All Good Children, the future isn't pretty... except for a few. Max Connors is lucky enough to be one of the privileged who live within the gates of Chemrose Corporation's crime-free protected city, New Middleton. Max, a genetically selected, but not primo, teen is gifted and bored. He uses his artistic talents and caustic smarts to commit minor acts of vandalism and an assorted variety of bothersome mischief. He is careful to maintain his grades and fly just under radar, though, so he won't be sent away to trade school as a throwaway.

For his senior year of school, Max must miss the first week so that he and his family can attend an aunt's funeral. Upon their return, Max notices that the students in his school no longer seem like themselves, but instead act like brainless zombies, obedient and cliche-spewing. Slowly, Max realizes that students are being inoculated, grade by grade, not with flu shots, but with an experimental medicine designed to make students submissive. Max, along with his best friend, Dallas, and younger sister, Ally manage to avoid the shots when Max's mother, who works as a nurse, volunteers to give the inoculations. Can the three children maintain their act as "good," model citizens or should they escape and face the outside world, full of mutants, crime and chaos?

If you enjoyed Neal Shusterman's Unwind, Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, or Lauren DeStefano's Wither, you might also like this book. I ( )

Oh how I like me some interesting Dystopian fiction. I like it even more when said Dystopia is caused by chemical corporations. And Catherine Austen gets double points for the portrayal of a teenage boy that well, feels like a teenage boy.

But I get ahead of myself. Maxwell Connors lives in New Middletown with his mother and sister. New Middletown is centered around Old folk homes, which are big business in the future. Built, owned and managed by Chemrose. The people who live in New Middletown are all employed by the corporation. Their children go to schools run by the corporation. And everybody, whether living in a large house or a small apartment, pay rent to the corporation. Maxwell and his little sister, Ally, miss the first week of school due to their aunt’s death. When they get back, they notice that the kids in Ally’s class are acting weird. They no longer play, scream, or even fight. Most terrifying of all, they are perfectly behaved and worse, it is spreading.

In her acknowledgments, Austen quips that she, “did not intend to write this as George and Harold Meet Teen Zombie Nerds in Stepford.” That pretty much sums it up. Max and his friend Dallas jump off the page as real teenage boys. Not too sensitive, not perfect with the overwhelming need to do stupid things. Yet Max loves his sister. He works hard at school despite his ‘tude and is obsessed with art, a love which he honed through illegally “decorating” the buildings in his neighborhood.

I don’t want to give too much away, but at one point Max and his friend put two and two together and realise what is going on with the younger kids and that they are going to be next. The struggle to hold on to their identity in a sea of friends-turned-zombies is both moving and terrifying. Austen grows this tension until it reaches an insane pitch.

The world she builds is also rich with detail. It is the world how it might be in a few years- where it works pretty much the same- the opening scene has Maxwell being frisked by an airport security guard. But the uniformity, the disparity between those allowed to live in the city and the those who are not, the hierarchy created by those who can afford the best genes for their children and those who can’t all ring prophetic. Austen takes not only at the environmental devastation caused by the large chemical corporations (there is a city on the banks of the St. Lawrence that has been turned into Freaktown because of a chemical spill), but she also takes aim at our current education system and the whole idea of streaming our children. These aspects might be exaggerated in All Good Children but they are still very identifiable.

My only quibble with the book would be the abrupt ending. Austen slowly grows the tension until the reader is vibrating with it, but then never tones it down. I would have liked a slower descent to match the slow ascent.

Still, an excellent read for those who liked the Hunger Games, Matched, The Maze Runner, and well, all the other dystopian lit out there. It also won the Sunburst prize for speculative fiction as well as the CLA award for Young Adult fiction, just in case you need a gold sticker on the cover to appreciate a book. ( )

All Good Children was a surprisingly great read. The Dystopian thread was smart and well paced. I doubt that Austen will get the attention her book so much deserves, but word of mouth and blogger buzz hopefully will spark interest.

Granted this is nothing like her first novel Walking Backwards, AGC seeks a mature audience, as sexual situations and strong language are highly present, even sometimes very unnecessary for a young adult book. ( )

ALL GOOD CHILDREN by Catherine Austen has reminded me of what I want and like in a dystopian story, and delivered it with heart-pounding intensity that left me turning the pages long into the early morning when I should have been sleeping. It isn’t even the action in the book that’s so crazy; it’s the calm way events are accepted – no, wanted – by the majority of Middletown, and the anxiety being felt by those who are daring to oppose the system.

As someone who teaches elementary school kids day after day, I found myself thinking “I wish my kids were this well behaved!” As ALL GOOD CHILDREN continued, though, the more horrified I became, and realized that no matter how disruptive or headstrong my students can be, it is much preferred to the calm, peaceful, robot-like obedience of the students in Middletown. I think my horror also came from the cavalier attitude that Catherine Austen wrote her adults as having towards the procedure (not all of them, mind you. Some of the teachers and parents are just as horrified as Max and Dallas about what is happening). How could anyone in a position of authority just disregard basic human rights like they are? The saddest part of the story is what happens to Max’s neighbour Xavier after his behaviour is changed, and the disregard the adults show for his situation.

The characters in ALL GOOD CHILDREN are amazingly portrayed. Max is strong, loving and takes care of his family and friends, but he’s also a bit of a troublemaker who doesn’t think twice about fighting and likes nothing more than to take advantage of a chance to graffiti a wall, play football and laze around avoiding homework. One of the reasons this book impacts so hard is because of how attached you get to the characters. All the tension and anxiety bleeds through the pages and it’s impossible not to cringe and laugh and want to cry.

Another aspect of ALL GOOD CHILDREN I really enjoyed? Max is African American, Dallas is white, there is a flamboyantly gay classmate and it just is, and accepted. I didn’t even fully clue in until maybe a third or so of the way through the book that Max, our main character, is African American. Catherine Austen does give character descriptions as the story goes on, and Max himself mentions the difference in skin colour near the end when he and Dallas begin planning to leave Middletown since his family wouldn’t be able to claim Dallas as a member, but other than that? No big deal, as it shouldn’t be, and I loved that.

The behaviour modification that the government is forcing on the country’s youth in order to make society better is just what I’ve been missing in my dystopia – a promise that this procedure will make everything ok and that our world will be the better for it, and yet it is so wrong. ALL GOOD CHILDREN is chilling and will definitely make you think twice the next time you wish you could just make someone behave the way you want them to. Perfect obedience may seem like a good thing, but when it sacrifices creativity, passion and open minds, nobody benefits, and Max is determined to keep his own personality at all costs. ( )

This book deals with another future scenario gone horribly wrong.

Max is a teen who is living in a highly sheltered community. The city is gated and you must have a place to live to get in. He is told how lucky he is to be where he is. The city is full of geriatrics. They are all sent to a nursing home to live out their days in peace and comfort.

Things begin to change when the kids are given vaccines that alters their personality. The teachers and administrators are thrilled and call it nesting. Max and his friends call them zombies. Then it is Max's grades turn to get the vaccine.

This is very interesting. I can't help but think about how for some there is a push to medicate active children so they are more manageable. (Just a thought.)

I take this as a cautionary tale. There is sex talk and repeated use of the "F" word. ( )