A group of rebels (called 'Desecrators' by Noa) is staging pop-up events around Ark to remind people of art, poetry, and beauty, and Noa wants them stopped!

Noa believes words are corrupt, but not everyone agrees. When Benjamin doesn't return from a trip and is found dead, John Noa appoints her Wordsmith and tasks her with shortening the List by removing words from circulation.

He's also guardian to Letta, a young girl whose parents left Ark when she was a young girl. He is charged with managing the List, a set of 500 words that residents can use to communicate, and with collecting stray words that are now banned from use. Diverse Easy Reader | Illustrated Chapterīenjamin is the wordsmith in Ark.The descriptions of the landscape are second-to-none, and the private moments the reader shares with Letta are priceless.

Overall, this book is gripping and emotional. The land where the characters live has been destroyed by climate change, but throughout the book it is clear that nature persists and is not a force that carries humanity, but rather something that society has to adapt to this is seen in the time spent in the forest, which is described as being magnificent and deadly. Therefore, if this book teaches us anything it is the importance of language.įorde covers the theme of nature in a way that explores its beauty and terror at the same time. As someone who works in education, this was particularly poignant for me as I know that there are children from deprived areas who find it difficult to express themselves. As a reader, you experience characters that speak List, and it is concerning how limited they are in their ability to communicate. The most interesting aspect of Forde’s work here is the emphasis on language. The protagonist, Letta, who is the Wordsmith, and the remaining rebels have one last monster to slay in their journey to freedom. They force people to speak from “The List,” which has been whittled down to just fifty words for the newest generation. Mother Tongue by Patricia Forde is the latest instalment in The Wordsmith Series, a sequence of books about a world devastated by climate change, and ruled by a tyrannical leader who controls language.

The last word patricia forde