Still, Forde’s exploration of language as both weapon and savior is a noble one, and environmental undertones bolster its power.

Bad boy”), often cripple plot development and hamstring secondary characters. While debut author Forde’s premise is intriguing, its execution vacillates in effectiveness List’s 500-word vocabulary is employed arbitrarily, and the conversations it generates, while illuminating the absurdity of limited language (“Criminal. Yet, with the help of a ragtag crew of outsiders, Letta might be the one to save it. What’s worse: List is quickly diminishing. But there’s no hope in Ark, and there’s certainly no love. How could he forget the floods, the famine, or their insidious origin: “dangerous, destructive words”? Thanks to Noa, Ark now relies on List, a fiercely regulated collection of permissible phrases.

Letta, Ark’s apprentice Wordsmith, may be too young to remember the “Melting,” but John Noa, the town’s ruler, is not. Potentially Sensitive Areas: Guns, Violence Letta’s faced with a dangerous choice: sit idly by and watch language slowly slip away or follow a stranger on a path to freedom. Then Letta meets a teenage boy who somehow knows all the words that have been banned. One day her master disappears and the leaders of Ark tell Letta she is the new Wordsmith and must shorten List to fewer and fewer words. Forbidden words like freedom, music, and even pineapple tell her about a world she’s never known. To make sure humans are able to survive, everyone in Ark must speak List, a language of only 500 words.Īs apprentice to the Wordsmith, Letta can read all the words that have ever existed. The city of Ark is the last safe place on Earth. Int Lvl: 5-8 Rdg Lvl: 5.3 Lexile: 600.įahrenheit 451 meets The Giver for middle grade readers!

The list book by patricia forde