Things Not Seen - Softcover

Clements, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142407313 ISBN 13: 9780142407318

Publisher: Puffin Books, 2006

Synopsis

Winner of American Library Association Schneider Family Book Award! 

Bobby Phillips is an average fifteen-year-old-boy.  Until the morning he wakes up and can't see himself in the mirror.  Not blind, not dreaming-Bobby is just plain invisible.  There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to Bobby's new condition; even his dad the physicist can't figure it out.  For Bobby that means no school, no friends, no life.  He's a missing person.  Then he meets Alicia.  She's blind, and Bobby can't resist talking to her, trusting her.  But people are starting to wonder where Bobby is.  Bobby knows that his invisibility could have dangerous consequences for his family and that time is running out.  He has to find out how to be seen again-before it's too late.

About this title

Review:

Teens, especially those not in the über-popular set, know all about feeling invisible. But what would happen if you actually did wake up invisible one day? Fifteen-year-old Bobby is faced with this curious predicament in Andrew Clements's compelling novel Things Not Seen. Doing his best to adapt, Bobby informs his parents and grows more and more frustrated as they try to control his (unseen) life. Attempting to take matters in his own hands, he ventures out--naked--to the library, where he meets a blind girl who becomes a natural confidant. The ensuing drama, involving a nationwide search for other invisible people and a break-in to the computer database at Sears, Roebuck legal department headquarters ("News flash: Invisible people make excellent spies and thieves") is authentic enough in detail to allow readers to overlook the nuttiness of it all. Teens will identify with Bobby's experience of being essentially invisible. Highly recommended. (Ages 11 to 15) --Emilie Coulter

About the Author:

Andrew Clements is the author of several children's books. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Northwestern University and a Masters of Arts in Elementary Education from National Louis University, he worked as a teacher sharing his love of reading with elementary, middle, and high school students and started his literary career by writing songs. He has worked for several publishing companies where he published, acquired, edited, marketed, and developed quality children's books.  His first novel was the award-winning Frindle, which won sixteen state book awards, as well as the Christopher Award.

About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0142407313
• ISBN 13: 9780142407318
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272