Fed up with his parents' boring old religion, agnostic-going-on-atheist Jason Bock invents a new god -- the town's water tower. He recruits an unlikely group of worshippers: his snail-farming best friend, Shin, cute-as-a-button (whatever that means) Magda Price, and the violent and unpredictable Henry Stagg. As their religion grows, it takes on a life of its own. While Jason struggles to keep the faith pure, Shin obsesses over writing their bible, and the explosive Henry schemes to make the new faith even more exciting -- and dangerous.

When the Chutengodians hold their first ceremony high atop the dome of the water tower, things quickly go from merely dangerous to terrifying and deadly. Jason soon realizes that inventing a religion is a lot easier than controlling it, but control it he must, before his creation destroys both his friends and himself.

Pete Hautman, author of Sweetblood and Mr. Was, has written a compelling novel about the power of religion on those who believe, and on those who don't.

Godless

ANNOTATION

When sixteen-year-old Jason Bock and his friends create their own religion to worship the town's water tower, what started out as a joke begins to take on a power of its own.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Why mess around with Catholicism when you can have your own customized religion?"

Fed up with his parents' boring old religion, agnostic-going-on-atheist Jason Bock invents a new god — the town's water tower. He recruits an unlikely group of worshippers: his snail-farming best friend, Shin, cute-as-a-button (whatever that means) Magda Price, and the violent and unpredictable Henry Stagg. As their religion grows, it takes on a life of its own. While Jason struggles to keep the faith pure, Shin obsesses over writing their bible, and the explosive Henry schemes to make the new faith even more exciting — and dangerous.

When the Chutengodians hold their first ceremony high atop the dome of the water tower, things quickly go from merely dangerous to terrifying and deadly. Jason soon realizes that inventing a religion is a lot easier than controlling it, but control it he must, before his creation destroys both his friends and himself.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

PW called this novel, in which a rebellious high schooler starts his own church, the Chutengodians, who worship the "Ten-legged God" their town's water tower, "provocative." Ages 12-up. (Nov.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Children's Literature - Uma Krishnaswami

Jason Bock is not exactly searching for the sacred. He is coping with having been flattened by Henry Stegg, while looking under the water tower for snails for his friend Shin's evolving science project. On his back, staring up at the orb overhead, a simple truth floods Jason's brain—"Water is life." In the face of the Teen Power Outreach program his anxious father has cornered him into, Jason finds himself inventing a new religion—the Church of the Ten-Legged God. Hautman captures a convincing teenaged anti-logic that is as wacky as it is charming. Shin provides a different energy altogether, grounded in weighty calculation and a penchant for philosophical riffs on Genesis, both of which culminate in a far darker outcome than Jason could ever have predicted. As up becomes down, Henry moves from stereotypical bully to reckless collaborator, and the numbers of the faithful grow unexpectedly. All this greatly increases the complexity of Jason's social life, until his lies of expediency and their consequences threaten to bring far more than his credibility crashing down. Hautman takes his ragtag cast of characters from humor to the brink of disaster, raising some water tower-sized questions in the process. The subplot of Jason's relationship with his father is resolved in a realistic enough manner, but the real strength of this novel lies in Hautman's sympathetic rendering of the everyday anarchy of adolescence. 2004, Simon and Schuster, Ages 12 up.

VOYA - Jamie S. Hansen

Agnostic and soon to be atheist, Jason Bock is bored with Catholicism and especially with the Teen Power Outreach discussion group. At one of the weekly meetings, hoping to shock group leader "Just Al" Anderson and to impress any cute girls in attendance, Jason announces that he does not believe in God. He now worships the Ten-legged One, a deity that just happens to be the town water tower. Jason founds a new religion, the Church of the Ten-legged God, and half seriously, half mockingly begins proselytizing for his new faith. Among his friends and acquaintances, Jason finds an unlikely group of recruits to his new faith. Dubbing themselves the Chutengodians, Jason, perky Magda, stolid Dan, eccentric Shinn, and violent Henry soon find that ideas, especially religious ones, can take on lives of their own. As Jason struggles to keep his new religion pure, Shinn labors over writing the Chutengodian bible, and Henry plots ways to make the cult exciting-and dangerous. Jason learns that it might be easier to create a religion than to control it, especially when the group holds its first ceremony atop the water tower, an act that has dangerous consequences. Suddenly the Church of the Ten-legged God is a deadly and terrifying cult. Readers will find Jason's first-person narrative compelling and provocative. Although Hautman chooses an atypical subject for a young adult book, he succeeds in creating a flawlessly paced and painfully realistic tale of the power and influence of religion. VOYA CODES: 4Q 3P J S (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Will appeal with pushing; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2004, Simon & Schuster, 208p.,Ages 12 to 18.

KLIATT - Claire Rosser

Hautman is the author of Sweet Blood, an ALA Best Book for YAs and a KLIATT Outstanding Book of 2003. The main character in Godless is a 15-year-old boy named Jason Bock, a smart and smart-alecky only child who is driving his parents crazy. Jason is a bit of a geek, whose best friend Shin is even geekier, if possible; but the two are brilliant. They have spent many hours since they met when they were ten years old designing graphic novels and pursuing strange obsessions, so their idea of starting a new religion doesn't come completely out of the blue. Jason, however, sees their new religion as a satirical poke at Catholicism, and about as meaningless as he has decided Catholicism is. (Beware Jason's comments about certain aspects of Catholicism; for instance, his remark that if you buy the belief in transubstantiation, then the communion wafer is "a sliver of Jesus meat.") Since most of us go through a totally irreverent phase during our adolescence, we aren't so offended by Jason. The adventures that Jason and Shin start in motion with their new religion are the stuff that will get YAs' attention: the basic tenet of their faith is that water is the most important part of life on earth and they will worship the town's water tower—"The Ten-Legged One." This involves midnight excursions to the tower and climbing the tower, which interests several other teenagers, including a cute girl named Magna, who become members of the faith. They egg one another on to more dangerous activities, one involving a strange baptism ceremony swimming in the million-gallon tank of water at the top of the tower. Eventually there is an accident, their "crimes" are discovered, and there is one resultno one could have predicted: Shin has to be hospitalized because he starts to really believe in this new religion and is losing touch with reality. Inventive, frequently funny and sometimes scary, this YA novel has a lot to offer readers. Like the main character in Sweet Blood, Jason is extremely intelligent and imaginative—Hautman must be as well. KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2004, Simon & Schuster, 198p., Ages 12 to 18.

School Library Journal

Gr 7 Up-Jason is a smart 15-year-old, an agnostic-leaning-toward-atheism, who resists following in the footsteps of his devoutly Catholic father. Getting clocked under the water tower by the nasty and unpredictable Henry leads Jason and his friend Shin to combine their talents to posit a new religion. "Chutengodianism" sanctifies water, the source of all life, as manifested by the Ten-Legged God, aka that same million-gallon water tower. Creating the creed on the fly, Jason soon gathers a handful of acolytes, including his former nemesis. Their midnight pilgrimage to the top of the tower for worship transmutes into an impromptu baptism when Henry hacksaws through the padlock. Their swim rouses sexy thoughts about Magda, stripped to her panties and bra, balanced soon after by panic when it seems they might be trapped. Regaining the top of the tank, Henry slips and sustains severe injuries crashing onto a catwalk below. Fortunately for him, the authorities have already arrived. The Church is busted and the faithful face new trials and temptations. These are fun, wacky, interesting characters. While chuckling aloud may be common in the early chapters, serious issues dominate the latter stages of the book. The rivalry between Jason and Henry for the attentions of Magda, Jason's unrepentant certainty that doing what he sees as right is more important than following his parents' rules, and Shin's apparent continued belief in the tenets he helped create are thought-provoking and disturbing. Jason is left to ponder the meaning of a religion that has only himself as a member.-Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. Read all 6 "From The Critics" >