Books

Cory Doctorow’s ‘Little Brother’ only has 1 sex scene and it’s a pretty good model for sex positivity, I guess. That aside, it’s definitely near-future dystopia. Not far off the mark from today.

Octavia E. Butler’s ‘Parable of the Sower’ may be a bit above their level, but I could see 13 and 14 year olds devouring it none the less. Hmmm… there might be a steamy sex scene in this one too.

Technically Ender’s Game is a dystopian sci-fi novel. The film omits some insanely important content like a video game that the cadets all use during downtime that explores their psyche.

It’s old, but was my first introduction to dystopian concepts: The Time Machine by HG Wells

Oh, my wife loved Z for Zachariah at that age and reading it as an adult was enjoyable for me. A classic post-nuke young adult book.

Orwell's Animal Farm would seem like a good way to go. Not having any Orwell in a dystopian literature class would seem like a miss, and Animal Farm's heavy parable style sets it apart from the others in the list.

Off beat suggestion: The Lorax by Dr Seuss. It might be interesting to study dystopia aimed at younger children as part of a full exploration of the genre.

Possibly somewhat on-the-nose, but It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis is fairly timely.

Back with the classics, perhaps The Trial by Franz Kafka. Very effective and highly distilled form of dystopian text, boiled right down to its elements.

Shout out to The Last Man by Mary Shelley, which is a contender for the first true dystopian novel (certainly one of the first worth remembering).

Ray Bradbury also has a good array of short stories, at least one or two of which are sort of precursors to Fahrenheit 451

Edit: its been too long since i read Fahrenheit 451... just started (and finished) re-reading it for the second time in my life, in the last couple hours. i still think it might be one of the more likely dystopias that await us.

It feels appropriate, somehow, that my first read through was a pirated PDF copy of it from some random corner of the internet.

I'm left feeling oddly... hopeful. Like I've been reminded of a part of being human that is good.

Wait, minority report was a book before it was a movie??

Brave New World, maybe? It's tough to discuss dystopia topics without also discussing adult topics.

Wool (Silo series) is a great book. It has a TV show adaptation too.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein is a short/funny book that might be palatable for the students

My fuck censorship knee jerk response is Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits or Blood Meridian or some dime store pulp noir Raymond Chandler

A few more actual possible recommendations might be Judge Dredd/2000 AD, Burning Chrome by William Gibson (collected short stories), or most of Philip K Dick and Kurt Vonnegut Jr use dystopian tropes but you'd have to scan for adult content when choosing.

Uglies by Scott Westerfield might be a decent option. There is a recent movie based on it.

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau is really good too. Also has a movie I think, but it's older.

Tomorrow When the War Began by James Marsden. It's been a long time since I read it but I think it fits too. Maybe a little dark, and possibly more "survivalist" than "dystopian".

I read Ender's Game for almost every book report in middle school :)

More Sci fi than dystopian, but I still recommend

The Chrysalids https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chrysalids

~~The Giver https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giver~~ I missed that one in your list, whoops!

I read both of these in school around that age; they may be good options for you.

I remember among the hidden being really influential to me in gradeschool though we never read it for class

Around that age, I remember reading The White Mountains, it's worth considering

Animal Farm?

I don't think there's ever been a more appropriate time to assign 1984

Divergent

Ender's Game for sure was my first thought.

It of course depends on your students, but I'm just gonna chime in that I read 1984 in 9th grade, so I would have been 14 years old, only a year older than your students. It was admittedly an honors English class, but depending on their skill and maturity I don't think that you necessarily need to avoid it as an option. Maybe not as a take-home book for them to read on their own, but maybe as one to read in class to sort of guide them through and challenge them a bit.

I don't know much about "kids these days," it's been 20+ years since I was their age, and probably around 10 years since I reread 1984, but nothing in my memory sticks out as something I would have been too bothered by as an older middle schooler and honestly probably pretty tame compared to some of what we were watching and reading on our own time (if I recall, the original Saw movie came out around the same time and I remember seeing it)

Again, you certainly know your students better than we do, but I assume that "dystopian literature" isn't a required course but some kind of elective, and your students are signing up for it and probably wanting to experience some darker and more adult themes, otherwise they probably would have chosen a different class.