- Summary: Todd Hewitt and the dog he never wanted, Manchee, live in Prentisstown. This is a town of men and he is the only boy left. There is constant Noise, the thoughts of every man in the town, floating around for everyone to hear. Right before his 13th birthday when he is poised to become a man, Cillian and Ben, his caretakers since his mother’s death, tell him he must leave. With very little instruction and a quickly packed rucksack, Todd and Manchee leave everything they’ve ever known to quickly learn everything was a lie. Viola, a girl from another world, becomes his drive to survive as they run from a crazed army of Prentisstown men who want to capture Todd and take over the world.
- Textbook: This novel would fall into the realm of fantasy/science fiction. Prentisstown is a place where a germ has caused everyone to hear everyone else's thoughts. But despite the unbelievability of this, when Todd realizes that he can read Viola’s thoughts without hearing them, the read is able to trust in this world. It isn’t different from the pastoral time periods that humans have experienced. People left their homelands to find new and peaceful places, but were sometimes faced with great challenges and difficulties that they either overcame or that caused them to fail. The descriptions of the other communities and the lack of formal knowledge in comparison to Viola’s world where technology and formal education were critical is in direct comparison with the city versus country beliefs on education: learning to hunt or learning geometry? Also, as the story progresses, we learn the truth about Prentisstown and the laws of the New World, which further solidify the trust that readers have in these two teenage characters and their world.
Ness, P. (2008). The knife of never letting go. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.
Other books in the Chaos Walking series:
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