Chaos Walking Trilogy Patrick Ness

Background and Summary  On a planet called New World, settlers and animals can hear each other's thoughts in a loud, never ending stream of words and pictures they call noise. Todd, the last boy in Prentisstown finds the impossible. A girl. All women were wiped out by the noise germ when they arrived on this planet, or so he thought. Upon this discovery, Todd, his dog, and the girl (who doesn’t have noise) are forced to flee. They must escape pursuers that can hear their every thought and discover the terrible secrets of Prentisstown along the way.  The 2 nd and 3 rd books reveal more secrets, they deal with the many sides of war, as well as questions of trust and redemption in people

Characters  Todd: protagonist, 13 years old, parents died when he was a baby, raised by his uncles Ben and Cillian, he has a dog named Manchee, He is illiterate and the writing is influenced by that  Viola: 13 years old, part of a scouting party sent ahead by a group of new settlers, her parents died when they crashed on New World, She is found by Todd, she is the first female he has ever seen  Mayor Prentiss: Antagonist, mayor of Prentisstown, goal is to take over New World, very heartless and manipulative  Mistress Coyle: introduced in the 2 nd book, leader of a group whose goal is to remove Mayor Prentiss from power, arsonist

Author: Patrick Ness  American, Lives in London, Has a husband  6 young adult novels-Carnegie medal twice, Booktrust teenage prize, Costa Children’s book award  Screenplays-The movie version of his book A Monster Calls, Doctor Who Spinoff series  Information overload-What if you couldn’t get away? No privacy? How difficult would it be if you were a teenager? How would you lie and keep secrets?

Critical Acclaim  Very High Ratings  Thought provoking, gut wrenching, deep, chilling, emotional, sticks with you  Low Ratings: Great first book but the other two didn’t meet expectations, used violence to jerk around people’s emotions