Things Not Seen Themes

1 This review is about the novel Of Things Not Seen, by Don Aker. Don Aker used to be a high school teacher in Middleton, Nova Scotia. Now he currently works as a Literacy Mentor for the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board. He began writing in 1988 and he usually concentrates on writing short fiction for an adult audience. Don never planned at first to write this young adult novel, Of Things Not Seen. Although, he eventually did so as a result of something that involved one of his students. Don Aker required the students in his class to keep journals which he collected and read. This is how he got the idea to write Of Things Not Seen, when one of his students starting writing about being physically abused by her father.

Don Aker got the idea to make it young adult fiction also because of this one student, because she was a young adult in his class. The novel was published by Stoddart books in 1955. The

Ben Corbett is the most important character to play a role in Of Things Not Seen. Ben is a sixteen year old boy, who is desperately struggling to keep his life together. He makes excellent and sometimes over the top marks in school, as a grade 11 student at Brookedale High school. He rarely tells anyone the problems that happen in his life and the pain he goes through. He has kept a secret for nine years about his life without telling his classmates, his teachers, his neighbors, from everyone but his girlfriend, Ann and octogenarian neighbor Sadie Jackson. Jim Rankin is Ben's stepfather, who has treated Ben and his mother badly for nine years ever since his mother married him. Jim Rankin works at a plastics factory and spends most of his pay on alcohol, which doesn't help pay the bills. Rankin has rages, often alcohol influenced, are unpredictable, and always physically violent. Rankin has physically injured Ben and his wife, (Ben's mother) multiple