BookDragon Books for the Diverse Reader

In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang

In Real LifeI’m too much of a Luddite to know much about online gaming and avatars and such, but even a techno-backwards oldster like me can appreciate this feisty, original celebration of girl power. [Thankfully, the introduction offers just the right overview you’ll need to understand enough.] Award-winning young adult author Cory Doctorow tells the tale while the uniquely creative Jen Wang (her debut, Koko Be Good, was a mischievous delight) energetically animates the pages. ‘Go, girl, go!’ is never far from any of the panels.

Anda is a player, so she’s thrilled when an Australian “kick-arse” gamer – real name Miss Liza McCombs; avatar Lizanator, Queen of the Spacelanes, El Presidente of the Clan Fahrenheit – comes to visit Anda’s high school computer class with a proposition for girls only: join Coarsegold, “the fastest growing massive multiplayer role-playing game,” and play as a girl. Yes, girls do game, but more often than not erasing their gender within the game; “that’s a tragedy,” Lizanator laments. As one of the world’s best gamers, she’s determined to change that.

Inspired, Anda is in. She enters Coarsegold as KaliDestroyer and quickly climbs up the levels. She meets another gamer – “call me Sarge,” aka Lucy – who’s got a few lessons to teach Anda about going virtual. Even in this made-up universe of what seems to be instant-gratification-from-a-distance, real world values like kindness, understanding, and honesty go a long way. In spite of powerful, potentially lucrative inducements from behind the screen, Anda chooses her humanity over bounty, which makes her the biggest winner of all.

On either side of the display screen, the battle of ‘haves vs. have-nots’ is never far. Haves hiring have-nots on this side of the screen to reach higher and higher levels have resulted in tragic, even deathly consequences: “It’s not surprising,” Doctorow explains, “that gamespace has become a workplace for hundreds of thousands of ‘gold farmers’ who undertake dreary, repetitive labor to produce virtual wealth that’s sold to players with more money and less patience than them,” Doctorow explain. Doctorow and Wang offer both a warning exposing unfair, illegal e-commerce, as well as encouragement for girls to claim their own identities even when playing games. Most importantly, Anda’s tough decisions show that being the hero is not always easy, but it sure earns the very best rewards in real life indeed.

Readers: Middle Grade, Young Adult

Published: 2014

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