Boomtown
Boomtown
© 2008 Nowen N. Particular (a.k.a. Marty Longé)
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Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Page design by Mandi Cofer.
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This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Particular, Nowen N.
Boomtown / Nowen N. Particular.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4003-1345-7
Summary: On the day of their arrival in Boomtown, Washington, Reverend Button and his family make a grand entrance into town by accidentally blowing up the firecracker factory, and as they settle into the community their escapades continue.
[1. Family lifeâWashington (State)âFiction. 2. Adventure and adventurersâFiction. 3. Washington (State)âFiction. 4. Humorous stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.P25625Bo 2008
[Fic]âdc22
2008019439
Printed in the United States of America
08 09 10 11 12 QW 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my dad, “Sparky,”
who burned down a chicken barn,
worked in a match factory,
and set a paint room on fire.
(Those are the only incidents we know about;
there were certainly others.)
You ignited an entire family of crazy inventors.
Thank you.
Contents
I
f this book is worth reading, it's because better books have already been written by better authors. Will anyone ever write a children's book better than
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
,
The 21 Balloons
, or
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
? Cheers to C. S. Lewis, William Pène Dubois, Roald Dahl, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lloyd Alexander, Madeleine L'Engle, Dr. Seuss, and so many other favorites. As a boy, these authors introduced me to the great adventure of reading. As a writer, they have shown me how to find Boomtown.
Neither could I have found Boomtown without the constant support of my wife, Jamie, and my four children, Brandy, Christian, Faith, and Brittany. They championed the project from the very first day, especially my youngest, who read each chapter as it was finished and laughed in all the right places (thanks, Bert!). My father, Bob, is the inspiration for many of the crazy inventions you'll find in Boomtownâwe'll never for-get the car he built out of spare parts and Elmer's Glue. Also thanks to my mom, Betty, who taught me to love life in general and books in particular. I'm grateful to my brother and sister and my extended family for their encouragement and humor.
I am deeply grateful to those who edited the early drafts of this book with brutal honesty and keen insight. A special thanks goes to Faith Longé and Rachelle Longé for technical expertise and guidance. My friends Seth Crofton, Julie McIntire, Shane Taylor, and especially Darin and Janell Jordan and their children, Tommy J. and Julie, and Chad and Lisa Larrabee and their children, Davis, Annabeth, and Mitch, have been cheer-leaders since the very beginning. You have been voted honorary citizens of Boomtown.
Sam Barnhart, the music minister from Common Ground Church, introduced me to Jennifer Gingerich at Thomas Nelson Publishers. She and her editorial team have been especially kind, finally turning my dream into reality. They prove what the people of Boomtown have always said:
Nowen ever succeeds
on his own.
Every victory is a shared triumph.
A final nod goes to all the English teachers and history teachers over the years who never quit on me, even though I gave them a thousand reasons to do so. You are the unseen heroes of any book that will ever be written or has ever been written. Keep on teaching! You're changing the world one dreamer at a time.
I
f you are anything like most kids, you will
not
read this introduction. You want to skip past the boring parts and jump ahead to where the dragon is attacking the castle or the detective uncovers the most important clue. If you are like that, you are among the thousands of children who do not read introductions to books. Tedious paragraphs that explain why reading a particular book is going to be “good for you” is like having your parents make you eat lima beans before you can have dessert. How dreadful. It may be
good
for you, but it certainly isn't any
fun
.
I used to be like that, but then I grew up and got boring. Just ask my kids, Ruth, Jonny, and Sarah. They're the sort who love firecrackers and bottle rockets shooting every which way, bouncing out of control. I prefer candles sitting in a window, quiet and predictable. That's the
opposite
of what I found in Boomtown. It was a strong dose of medicine, and I had trouble swallowing it.
As you read this story, you'll see what I mean. This book tells all about the unusual things that happened to us in an odd place called Boomtown. After reading this account, you'll probably think I made the whole thing up. It certainly
sounds
like I did. But I promise you, it's all true.
It was 1949, and we'd had enough of the craziness of California. So I decided to move my family to upper eastern Washington to a town called Boomtown. We were looking for-ward to wide-open spaces, quiet streets, picket fences, rows of charming houses, and snow at Christmas. The plan was that I would be the pastor of a small-town church with quiet small-town ways. Janice would escape the pressures of being a minister's wife in a large urban congregation, while our three children would find friends their own ages. We pictured an idyllic postcard life surrounded by rolling hillside farms and simple, charming people. That's what we were looking for, and that's exactly what we foundâalong with a few hundred unexpected surprises.