By: Andrew Clements Publisher: Puffin Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Puffin Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 272 Publication Date: April 20, 2006 Reading Level: Young Adult
Product Description: 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.
Amazon.com 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
The details of being invisible It's hard to completely despise a book that takes such a fascinating concept and goes so far with it; if nothing else, this is a book that makes you think and a story that stays with you after you have finished.
But Andrew Clements jumping into the teen scene? I don't know, it doesn't come off as smoothly as it could.
Still, Clements shows an amazing bit of creativity here in the concept of invisibility. Further than that is some emotion that blows many other things out of the water.
That's what got me going--character emotion and drama. I guess I"m a sucker for that kind of stuff. How can the budding romance between an invisible boy and a blind girl not be sweet?
Unfortunately, the drawbacks of this story go back to that pesky main plot of invisibility--it winds up jumping back at you when you would rather be obsorbed by the whole romance. And it's a little too logical and a little too, well, boring.
Still, it's a marvelous concept, and these are some of Clements' best characters.
Invisibility Parallels Disability A fun & wonderful read! I loved this book from start to brilliant finish! Things Not Seen is an interesting, creative and I believe successful way to introduce disability to teens and adults. Bobby Phillips wakes up one morning and is invisible; throughout the book invisibility is shown to parallel living with a disability. One passage early in the book says: "... it's not like I've got the chicken pox or the flu or something. This is completely...different, and it's happening to me, and it means that I can't do anything like I did it yesterday. So that's why I'm saying...what do I do?"
Soon Bobby meets and becomes friends with Alicia who is blind. Because one of them can't see and the other can't be seen, they make a great team. The way Alicia's mother reacts to Bobby is very humorous. She says to Alicia: "What does this young man wear when you meet with him?" and Alicia replies, "On really cold days, he wears Saran Wrap, but most of the time he's naked." Bobby recounts his first visit to Alicia's house saying "Her mom lets me in, but she says, `stand right there', and then she runs - really runs - and brings me a long white terry cloth robe to wear."
I really enjoyed the writing style of Andrew Clements and now I want to read Frindle. Other great books for teens (and older) on disability issues include: Rules, Hurt Go Happy, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Unputdownable... How good is this book? I read it at an auto repair shop, and, really, that was the only time I wished the mechanics would take a bit longer with my car, just so I could finish reading the thing. Andrew Clements is most often a writer of children's books, but, in 2002, he wandered into Young Adult fiction territory with the engrossing THINGS NOT SEEN.
15-year-old Bobby Phillips feels a bit of an outcast. He attends an elite private school, but he's not enough of an egghead or an athlete to comfortably mesh in. He feels that people look thru him, as if he weren't there. Not to mention, his parents often aggravate him. One morning, Bobby Phillilps wakes up, showers, looks into the mirror, and learns that he's become invisible.
The first thing that Bobby does is tell his parents of his predicament. This says something about Bobby because, even if he's often resentful of his parents (who predictably tend to dismiss him as a kid), he thinks enough of them to instantly let them into the loop. His parents are both academics, with dad a scientist and mom a professor in literature. But even their brains prove useless in reversing Bobby's condition. The outside world intervenes when Child Services and the law come knocking on the Phillips household to check up on him (he's stopped going to school, you see). His parents lie to them, thinking that it's a really bad idea to have Bobby go public and possibly fall into government hands. You'd think being invisible would be a cool thing, but Bobby just wants his old life back. He just wants to be seen again, and to be acknowledged. Plus, now, as Bobby remains "missing," his parents fall under police suspicion and just might end up in prison.
I think each of us has gone thru phases when we have a disconnect with the world, when we feel misunderstood and inconsequential...and invisible. When you're a child, this happens most often in school with your peers and during interactions with grown-ups. This theme of isolation powers this novel. Andrew Clements spins a thoughtful and emotional tale of a teenager blindsided with an unnatural condition and attempting to cope with it. THINGS NOT SEEN, a coming-of-age story with a healthy dose of sci-fi, is riveting enough that I had to simply keep on reading until I got to the end. The two lead characters, Bobby and Alicia, the blind girl he befriends, come off as real-life people. Bobby is your typical teen, angry and rebellious and sarcastic - and being invisible doesn't improve his temper. At times, he can be a serious brat. But I like that Bobby refuses to slink away. I admire his moxie as he ventures out in Februarian Chicago, overbundled in disguising clothes during inclement weather or going commando when it's warm enough. When his parents don't make any headway with his problem, Bobby has enough wits and initiative to take matters into his own hands. Alicia, blind for only two years and quite prickly about it, is undergoing her own brand of invisibility, as folks tend to treat her like a porcelain doll when they're not simply staying away from her. Alicia and Bobby begin a close friendship, and watching this develop is one of the joys of the book.
Clements does a solid job examining the real-life consequences to Bobby's problem. Clements also applies some logic and science to the thing. There are severe limitations to being invisible. For example, not being able to see your body means that hand-to-eye coordination becomes problematic. Bobby initially struggles with the mechanics of walking and climbing stairs and reaching for objects. I also enjoyed Bobby's comparison of his condition with the Greek warriors of the past, who had to fight nude, the reasoning being that your senses (including that of self-preservation) are heightened when in such a vulnerable state. Being invisible means always being alert. It's easy enough to picture an invisible man crossing the street and being viciously whacked by oncoming cars.
THINGS NOT SEEN is wonderful for a number of things. Firstly, there's the cool premise. Then the presentation as a coming-of-age story. There's a budding romance. And an honest, perceptive depiction of a relationship between parents and son (and between parents and daughter, with Alicia). Andrew Clements's clear and natural storytelling style carries you along and draws you in. But my favorite part of the book comes at the end, at the heart of which is that achingly beautiful letter which Alicia writes to Bobby. It closes out the book perfectly.
I wonder if you've ever had this feeling. When you're so into a book, and when you've just finished it, do you ever wonder how many other books you have to go thru to feel this same way again? That's what I'm thinking now, having just put down this book.
For those who got wrapped up in THINGS NOT SEEN, Andrew Clements wrote a sequel in 2004, Things Hoped For. The third chapter in the series, titled Things That Are, comes out September 2008. And if this topic of invisibility has got you hooked, then check out H.F. Saint's Memoirs of an Invisible Man and, of course, H.G. Wells' classic story The Invisible Man (Signet Classics). For something similar in tone to THINGS NOT SEEN, Steven Gould's Jumper: A Novel (Jumper) (never mind the movie!) is also quite unputdownable.
Entertaining enough... Of course the subject is interesting - waking up invisible; and the way main character deals with his crisis carries the story along; and I like the way he meets up - and strikes up a "more-than-friendship"- with just the person who can't at first tell he's invisible. The conclusion - how he became invisible in the first place, and how he overcomes his problem - is rather dumb, but it didn't really matter to me. For me, the book was really about how two people who FEEL invisible come together and see each other. So - even though the plot device of invisibility drives the book, and the reason was rather silly, I thought the book was good overall.
Invisible Possibilities Andrew Clements' THINGS NOT SEEN is a likeable enough novel and, as a love story, works quite well. 15-year-old Bobby is both polite and strong-willed, an interesting kid. And he falls for Alicia, who's both polite and blind, an equally-interesting kid. The catch is, Bobby's invisible. He woke up that way, you see (or maybe you don't). Thus, Alicia considers him like any other boy -- at first.
Teens will enjoy the problem-solving nature of this book as Bobby, Alicia, and their parents try to reverse the invisibility process and make him a THINGS SEEN again. There's also a lot of dialogue, which keeps the novel moving along at a good clip.
What I disliked was the corny subplot involving the law trying to track Bobby down (the parents, who play dumb, are apparently subject to arrest). Also pushing it is the way Bobby's problem is solved. It just seems too easy. The final problem comes with the way Clement let so many possibilities slip through his fingers. An invisible teen might be unhappy with his predicament, but he also might enjoy it quite a bit (even in the wrong ways). There's none of that here, and one is left to wonder, "Why not?"
Decent book, with some sure to like it better than me, so read it and judge for yourself -- especially if you are intrigued by the invisibility motif.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Not Available Comics
Trevor
