Fans of The Giver Will Love Patricia Forde’s The List
In Patricia Forde’s compelling new middle grade dystopia The List, Letta lives in a future in which the cataclysmic flooding of the Melting almost wiped out humanity. One man, John Noa, foresaw the disaster, and created a community called Ark for his followers. The rising water all but eradicated the written word, and now John Noa uses his authority to pare spoken language down to a bare minimum—only 700 words are permitted, and he plans to cut the number down even further. Words led to technology, and technology triggered the Melting, so Noa sees words as a threat to his dream of an earth in balance. Music and the arts are forbidden, and those who transgress by creating are condemned as Desecrators, and killed outright or banished.
The List
Hardcover $16.99
The List
Hardcover $16.99
Letta is the wordsmith’s apprentice, helping him make boxes of approved vocabulary words. The wordsmith Benjamin collects all the words he can find, and so Letta has a larger vocabulary, and a much greater appreciation for language, than is safe for her. When Marlo, a boy shot by Noa’s security forces for being a desecrator, staggers into the wordsmith’s shop, she shelters him, not knowing quite why she is doing so. Marlo, raised in a free community outside the Ark, opens her eyes to her world, and she begins to realize that John Noa’s rule is not as benign as she had thought. And then she realizes that Noa’s hatred of language goes farther than she’d realized, and to save the words left to the world, she must work to overthrow his tyranny.
Letta is the wordsmith’s apprentice, helping him make boxes of approved vocabulary words. The wordsmith Benjamin collects all the words he can find, and so Letta has a larger vocabulary, and a much greater appreciation for language, than is safe for her. When Marlo, a boy shot by Noa’s security forces for being a desecrator, staggers into the wordsmith’s shop, she shelters him, not knowing quite why she is doing so. Marlo, raised in a free community outside the Ark, opens her eyes to her world, and she begins to realize that John Noa’s rule is not as benign as she had thought. And then she realizes that Noa’s hatred of language goes farther than she’d realized, and to save the words left to the world, she must work to overthrow his tyranny.
It is easy to empathize with Letta as she struggles to make sense of a world turned upside down, and as she struggles to find and save the old Wordsmith, who’s been targeted by Noa. She must solve the mystery of what Noa plans, and pretend to cooperate with him, while all the while she becomes more convinced that she must stop his plans. He himself will stop at nothing to wipe the slate of humanity clean, taking away the language that makes humanity possible. Because he alone controls the secret of making clean drinking water, his power seems absolute…but with the help of Marlo and his community, Letta finds a way to succeed in bringing him down.
Letta is a compelling and relatable character; her transition from supporter of Noa and his system to rebel is believably gradual. The world-building is full of lots of supporting details, from words that can’t be used (like “please” and “thank you”) to details of the food available at the common dining hall. Both the daily life of Ark and the horror of Noa’s regime become vividly real.
It’s a fascinating story that will leave young readers with a new appreciation for language, and much to think about, like censorship, government control of creativity, and the dangers of protesting oppression. Fans of The Giver in particular will find much to appreciate, but it’s also a good one for young readers who haven’t yet been introduced to dystopian futures—there is some violence and torture (the removal of one character’s fingernails, for instance, which fortunately we only see after the fact) that will cause squirms, but because Letta keeps going and never loses hope (and because she wins outright in the end) it’s not the stuff of nightmares.
The List is on B&N bookshelves now.