A wastrel-in-training finds cause, and a Cause, to mend his ways in this alternate history from the author of Shakespeare’s Scribe (2000). The American revolt has collapsed with the capture of George Washington, but there’s still unrest in the colonies. Creighton Brown, spoiled son of a British officer supposedly killed in the war, has been involuntarily dispatched there in hopes that his ruthless uncle, Hugh Gower, colonel in charge of the Charles Town garrison, can shape him up. Captured by pirates led by dashing hothead Benedict Arnold, Creighton meets Ben Franklin and other exiles living in Spanish-held New Orleans, and finds himself playing both sides, forced to spy for Gower while becoming embroiled in a rebel plan to find and free Washington. Losing his arrogance and preconceptions with realistic reluctance, Creighton survives several narrow scrapes on the way to rescuing his father, who turns out to have actually been imprisoned for warning settlers of an impending massacre. As well, he ends up taking to heart Franklin’s observation that there is no such thing as a good war, or a bad peace. Disappointingly, Washington never does turn up, but readers will be swept along by this what if? adventure, and will find Franklin’s philosophy as applicable today as ever. (afterword) (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-525-46921-4
Page Count: 196
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
From England’s Children’s Laureate, a searing WWI-era tale of a close extended family repeatedly struck by adversity and injustice. On vigil in the trenches, 17-year-old Thomas Peaceful looks back at a childhood marked by guilt over his father’s death, anger at the shabby treatment his strong-minded mother receives from the local squire and others—and deep devotion to her, to his brain-damaged brother Big Joe, and especially to his other older brother Charlie, whom he has followed into the army by lying about his age. Weaving telling incidents together, Morpurgo surrounds the Peacefuls with mean-spirited people at home, and devastating wartime experiences on the front, ultimately setting readers up for a final travesty following Charlie’s refusal of an order to abandon his badly wounded brother. Themes and small-town class issues here may find some resonance on this side of the pond, but the particular cultural and historical context will distance the story from American readers—particularly as the pace is deliberate, and the author’s hints about where it’s all heading are too rare and subtle to create much suspense. (Fiction. 11-13, adult)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-439-63648-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2004
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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