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“Boomtown turned out to be a place where everybody’s favorite thing to do was to blow stuff up. …They valued education more than money, worked hard, stayed married, loved their children, cared for the environment, and honored the heritage of other cultures. You may ask, ‘How is that possible?’ I see your point. A place like that can’t be real. But it should be.” - From the “Introduction” by Nowen N. Particular

Boomtown, by the mysterious Nowen N. Particular, takes place in the fictional town of Boomtown, Washington in the 1940’s. The story is told by the Reverend Button, newly arrived with his family to minister over the Boomtown Church. After arriving, he discovers two things that upset his composure: first, that the people of Boomtown are one and all eccentrics who love blowing things up; second, that all the previous ministers of Boomtown Church (some twenty four of them) died in bizarre accidents after only a year or two of ministering.

The story is almost an ensemble piece, focusing chapter-to-chapter on the individual stories of the inhabitants of Boomtown. We hear the story of Chang, the town’s founder and creator of the fireworks factory that gave the town its name; Walt, the Butcher turned Barber; Mabel, proprietress of the eponymous Mabel’s Diner (”Terrible Coffee, Worse Service”); and the Hopontop Indians.

Right off the bat, I would like to say that I essentially enjoyed reading this book. However, I did find myself wondering if it would really hold the attention of the “tween” audience that it is apparently aimed at. Yes, it is colorful and cartoony and has lots of crazy happenstances. All well and good.

But the story is told by the father. Typically, a book of this type would be from the perspective of one of his children - and, indeed, they had more adventures than he did although (as promised) his life was endangered on several occasions. I mean, I did enjoy the book - but I can’t help but wonder if I would have enjoyed it just as much at age 10, or if I would have gotten impatient with the adult main character and wanted to see things from the kids’ viewpoints instead. Even though many things that happened in the book were intentionally very outlandish, I couldn’t escape the feeling that this was a grownup telling a story to another grownup. I don’t have any kids available to question and see if that approach works or doesn’t work, so I’ll just have to leave this issue open-ended.  But, what if the book Peter Pan was told entirely from the perspective of the Darling parents? It would have been a rather sad, depressing, colorless story.

The author stated in the introduction (quoted above) that he was “surprised” by the “ethnic variety” in the town. Okay, I get that this is supposed to be a Utopia of sorts; the author’s idea of the ideal town where everybody respects everybody else. But I’m also reminded of a warning on the beginning of the recently released Vol. 1 of Fleischer’s utterly wonderful Popeye cartoons:

(Emphasis on the final line, “… to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.”) Yes, the author did mention something to the effect that some people had some issues with a mixed-race child who becomes involved in the story. Yes, the author did take pains to explain how the town had a Japanese mayor just a couple years after the end of WWII, when most Japanese Americans were still viewed with suspicion across the USA.

Yet, I see the main character casually accepting things like the fact that the area has a female, hispanic circuit court judge (unusual for a small rural town even in this day and age) without any question whatsoever (despite the fact this is supposed to take place in the 1940’s) to be pushing it just a bit. Yes, I know this is essentially a cartoon world, but I think it could have borne a few more comments that this was very unusual in that time and place.

However, perhaps the biggest problem I had with this book was the ending - and I will try to explain my problem without ruining it for any potential readers. The book spent a lot of time getting us used to a certain set of characters (the amusing cover announces that this is “Book One” so I’m assuming that more are planned) - and yet, this set of characters simply ditches the town at the end. I found that rather disconcerting as well as going against a lot of what they’d been setting up in the book… it was like all the lessons that had been learned about acceptance were simply discarded. I’m assuming that the next book would simply have to deal with a wholly different set of characters, which I would find even more disconcerting. I liked these characters - I wanted to spend more time with them.

And I would also like to point out that despite this book being told by a minister (and being published by a Christian publishing company) I thought the religious message, if there was one, was a touch on the covert side. Perhaps the author was aiming at that to avoid “preaching” to the kids… but, really, if I’m buying a book from a religious publishing company, I kind of expect there to be a clear-cut religious theme…

I’m afraid this is going to be a half-and-half sort of review… because I essentially enjoyed reading it. I thought Boomtown sounded like a nice place to live in spite of the fact that it had no Catholics. I was entertained by most of the colorful characters - and wouldn’t want to live in an idyllic small town where everybody loves everybody else and enjoys setting off fireworks?

But, as I said, I had issues with both story elements and fact that we are getting everything from the perspective of the stodgy father character (which as an adult I had no problem with - but which as a kid, whom this story was ostensibly aimed at, I might have been bored).

So what is my final word? As I originally stated, I essentially enjoyed reading this book. I would recommend it to other adults who are looking for light, colorful reading and enjoy escapism - but I don’t think I can whole-heartedly recommend it for kids.  — Mrs. Hall

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