The Unnameables

I rarely review fiction, but the description of this book intrigued me and, after reading it, I'm impressed.

Boordem's writing does not distract from the story, even when read aloud. For me, this is foundational to considering a book well-written. I think that the reading level is somewhat more

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difficult than other books recommended for the 9-12 age group. That is a good thing, though; it can be difficult to find challenging-but-appropriate reading material for good readers this age. On the other hand, my six-year-old enjoyed it as a readaloud.

The story itself is terrific! Set in a fantasy world where all of the people and ideas on Island are named for exactly what they are and do, it captures the imagination without being overwhelmingly fantastic for a child's mind. There is no magic here to make the conservative uncomfortable. (There is an imaginary character with an imaginary ability, but nothing resembling real-life magic.) And the characters are believable.

What most impressed me about this story, though, were the themes. Without being "dumbed down," this was highly appropriate for young people, and encouraged values that I want, as a mother, to instill in my children. It addressed issues common to childhood (such as bullying) and coming-of-age (such as the changing appropriateness of one-on-one male-female relationships - but in a completely innocent manner). It encouraged hard work and the acceptance of responsibility - yet without diminishing the playfulness of childhood. It stressed the importance of history and the danger of revisionist history. And, finally, it demonstrated the inborn nature of creativity and the importance of beauty for its own sake.

This is definitely a book I would recommend to others, and I look forward to future stories by this author!

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Summary: There is an island - named Island - where people live happy, productive, useful lives, and everything and everyone is Named according to their purpose, according to the wisdom of the Book. On an island full of Carvers and Bakers and Weavers, Medford Runyuin has always been an outcast;

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washed ashore from the mainland as a baby, he was cared for but never really fit in. Because, apart from not having a proper Name, Medford also has a secret - a secret that is not only Unnamed, but also Unnameable - a secret which, if discovered, would certainly get him exiled from Island forever. Medford lives quietly on his own outside of town, attempting to be Useful... until he meets the Goatman. The Goatman is like no one Medford has ever met - half man, half goat, owner of the world's smelliest dog, an ability to call up the wind but an inability to control it, a penchant for eating napkins, and a tendency to speak his mind about the very things that make Medford most uncomfortable. The Goatman is almost certainly something Unnameable, but how can Medford keep him a secret when he's already guarding so many secrets of his own?

Review: This book was totally fascinating, and thoroughly bizarre. I'm having a hard time classifying it into a genre other than Young Adult. It's certainly a dystopia, but the lack of technology and the old-timey nature of Island makes it feel almost more like historical fiction than science fiction. And then the appearance of the Goatman makes it... what? Fantasy? (I suppose it's somewhat ironic that I'm worrying over the exact proper classification of a book about the perils of everything needing to be properly Named.) In any case, the two adjectives I used to describe the book break down along the genre lines; the dystopia is fascinating, and the Goatman makes things incredibly bizarre, but after a while, they start to work together to form a whole that is more than the sum of its parts.

The allegorical lesson of the story is not hard to pick out, nor is it a particularly hard one to learn, but it's also not really a theme I've often seen brought up in young adult fiction (and certainly never in this way.) The closest comparison is probably to Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue (the sequel to The Giver), although I thought The Unnameables did a much better job of providing a satisfactory ending. Not everything gets explained - most notably the origin of the Goatman - but by the time I got to the ending, my initial sense of "What the hell...? There'd better be a good explanation for this..." had faded, and I couldn't see how you could have told the story in any other way.

The characterizations and the worldbuilding were equally well-done; Booraem creates a society that is at once very familiar and yet just enough "off" so as to be totally unsettling, but she grounds it by creating characters (particularly Medford) that are recognizable and real... but then she shakes the reader out of their comfort zone again by introducing the Goatman. It's all at a level that is accessible for mid-grade readers without talking down to them... but at the same time, the story is intriguing enough to keep adults engaged. It's all very finely balanced and well-done, and I look forward to reading whatever Booraem writes next. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: I'd recommend this story to fans of dystopian fiction (or just those who like well-imagined stories) from mid-grade on up; there's nothing in the content that would be inappropriate for someone old enough to handle the length, and I think it's one of those rare books that successfully makes the crossover into adult readership as well.

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A fable-like story about a utopian society gone stale that would be realistic were it not for a key character, the "goat man," who is a mysterious satyr who helps the village folk regain their creativity.

the book is about a kid named Medford Runyuin. He has unnameable thought that could get him kicked of the island. Later on in the book the Goatman comes along and blow some of his house down. The Goatman tells Medford he is on a quest to control the wind. Then Medford is put on trial to get kicked

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off the island. Can his friends help him in time or is he going to the mainland?

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Medford Runyuin lives on the Island, a place where everything is named for its Use and nothing Useless is allowed. If you bake, your name is Baker; if you carve, your name is Carver; and everyone follows the rules laid out in The Book. Medford hopes to be called Carver once he reaches adulthood,

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but is worried about banishment because he has secretly been carving Useless (though beautiful) works of art. Now, if this had been the entire story, it would have been fairly generic. However, Medford's life is turned upside-down when he is visited by the Goatman, a smelly man with hooves and horns who can control the wind. This nifty little twist adds life to an otherwise rather standard story about the joy of creativity. I hope there's a sequel that goes into more detail about the goatfolk. He was the most interesting character.

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I confess I've always had a certain appeal for books with maps in them. It's nice to know where in the Hundred Acre Wood Winnie-the-Pooh lives or how far it is from Hobbiton to Mordor. They also suggest that the author is about to introduce the reader to whole new world, largely different from our

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own but in some ways, strikingly familiar.

Such is the case with The Unnameables. Ellen Booream's first venture into fiction is a delightful social satire in the vein of Gulliver's Travels or the more recent Ella Minnow Pea.

Medford Runyuin is an orphan who was cast ashore and grows to manhood on a tiny island off the coast of New England where every aspect of life is judged and regulated by its usefulness. Anything or anybody that is useful is named according to its use to the point where beets become crimson boiling roots and cows and are called greater horned milking beasts. That which has no use remains nameless and has no place in the world of Island. To surrender to the call of creative expression is to defy the strict conventions of usefulness. Works of art are labeled as `unnameable' and destroyed and their creators are likely to suffer public censorship or ostracism.

Such an orderly and colorless society cries out for a good shaking and Booream doesn't disappoint. Enter the `Goatman', a satyr in everything but name. His wild, impish and mischievous approach life brings into question everything that Medford knows and believes in. What follows is a cunningly crafted tale that had my daughters and me rolling on the floor more often than not.

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Different and imaginative

It's nice to see that authors still try to write good dystopian fiction for middle school, even though The Giver set a ridiculously high standard. This was pretty good--a society that has been formed based on only doing useful things, and useless things--sculpture, poetry, arts--are banned. Of

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course, our hero (Medford) is a talented carver, coaxing animals and other shapes out of the wood he works with, hiding his light under a metaphorical bushel (literally, under his bed). This alone would be an interesting story, but then a wind-controlling satyr blows in. I don't know that the story needed this extra fantastical element--I enjoyed the story from a more-or-less realistic standpoint, too. There was one moment near the end where the book teetered perilously close to sucking, but it managed to walk juuuuuuuuust this side of the Deus Ex Machina line.

Enjoyable, and great for middle-school readers!

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I loved this first for the map of Island which reminds me so much of my beloved Lopez Island of Washington state. As I read, I loved it again for Medford Runyuin and the Goatman, characters of kind heart and creative souls.

I've been trying to write down my thoughts on this book for some time, and failing. It's not because I didn't enjoy the book -- in fact quite the opposite. But it's a very different book from any other I've read. It's a fantasy, yes, with the wonderful character of the Goatman popping his horned

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head into the scene, summoning up his winds and wreaking change in the world of Medford Runyuin. But it's quirky, and philosophical, and oddly old-fashioned (in a good way, in a classic way, even).

My favorite thing about this book is the setting itself, and the themes and questions that are explored: What is the value of work? What is useful? Is anything truly useless? These are important questions to ask, and I fully enjoyed seeing them play out on the landscape of the Island. I furthermore appreciated that the Traditions of the Island, while in some respects the "enemy" of the narrative, are not depicted as entirely bad. There is plenty to admire and respect in the way of life embraced by the Islanders, though as a reader I feel for Medford's plight, as his creative impulses urge him to do what is forbidden.

This is a book that may demand a certain attentiveness while reading, but the right reader will find a rewarding tale of tradition and creativity.

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Medford Runyuin lives on Island, a strict, literal society that believes in practicality above all else. Creative Medford, a foundling with a useless name, often feels like an outsider. He tries to conform to Island ideals, but he just can't seem to stop himself from creating things. He manages to

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hide his talent until a Goatman and his dog blow into his life... and turn everything upside down.

I absolutely loved this!

I appreciate children's lit that gives its target audience full credit. I love it when an author introduces interesting ideas and leaves the reader free to come to her own conclusions. Booraem does this, and does it beautifully at that. She doesn’t explain a whole lot; instead, she leaves us to untangle Medford’s world for ourselves. She throws out hints and clues along the way, sure, but it’s up to us to piece it all together. What time period are we dealing with here? Is this an imaginary world fantasy, or are we on our own world? How is Island society structured? Booraem shows us everything we need to know and lets us piece it together for ourselves.

And she keeps on introducing questions, even as she provides us with some answers. Many of these are of the sort that readers will need to answer for themselves. What is Unnameable? How does the reader's conception of it differ from Medford's, or from Deemer's? The book lends itself to critical thinking; it’s like that great, absorbing school book you just couldn’t wait to see the discussion prompts for. (Or am I the only one who got excited about those?) There’s a ton to think about.

My absolute favourite thing about it was the way that Booraem dealt with Island culture. Even though the Island folk live in a way that will likely be unfamiliar and daunting for many readers, Booraem never treats their lifestyle as a negative. The place has problems, but Medford doesn’t feel the need to escape from Island. It’s his home. He likes it there. He’s conflicted at times, yes, (and these scenes are handled really, really well), but at the end of the day he’s willing to stick it out with the home he loves.

The characterizations are also quite good. None of them really stood out at first, but they snuck up on me as the novel progressed. They’re as complex as the world they live in, and they were a pleasure to read about. And don't even get me started on Medford's reaction to the Goatman's dog! I loved how Booraem dealt with it.

Problems? Hmmm... the book is a little slow to get going; it's the sort of read that grows on you, not something you love the moment you open it. (This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's worth mentioning. Stick with it. It gets really good). Some of the secondary characters - especially the villain - are a bit one-dimensional. There are a couple of areas where things could've been fleshed out a bit more, but they're so few and far between that I feel a bit silly even mentioning them.

Overall, though, this is a great read that works on a few different levels. I most definitely recommend it, both for children and for adults.

(Review copy provided by the publisher. This review originally appeared in a slightly different form on my blog, Stella Matutina).

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Children's fiction. Adventure/fantasy. I think this one got good reviews, possibly because the author used to be a big-time newspaper editor. I was not impressed by the cover art and the first chapter failed to snag me, so I'm not expecting this one to fly off the shelves, but it probably would

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make a fairly good read for any kid that loves books.

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