Noah's Castle

Growing up while the world breaks down

Noah’s Castle
By John Rowe Townsend

          Noah’s Castle grips the reader because it examines the struggles of a family when the thin veneer of society breaks down.  In this young adult novel hyperinflation strikes England, causing prices to soar and money to shrink in value and eventually become worthless.  The story explores how the members of the family, and those around them, survive and grow during one winter of the crisis.  Repeatedly, I found myself asking how I would react in the all too real situations presented by the author.

          Around the globe, countless families have faced such inflation in the last hundred years. Post-apocalyptic literature is gripping exactly because it examines how society could collapse and how we might respond. Would we get angry and riot, hunker down with our guns and supplies, suffer with others while trying to help or chart some middle course.  In varying degrees, the author explores each path as we see this world through the eyes of teenager Barry Mortimer.     

          Such books are often more message than well-written tale, but this book has balance.  John Rowe Townsend, is an award-winning writer of numerous children’s and young adult novels.  His experience is clear as he weaves the message nicely into the plot of this story.  However, as you read the story keep in mind that this is an American reprint of a novel originally released in 1975.  Modern novels tend to open with a crisis and move quickly forward, but the first two chapters of this story develop characters and setting.  Also, the father in the story, Norman Mortimer, is unabashedly sexist by modern standards.

          I recommend this engaging and well-written novel for teen to adult readers.