THE INVASION OF SANDY BAY

When the British frigate Nymph invades the small Massachusetts fishing village where 12-year-old Lemuel has moved with his mother in 1814, he uses his head and skills honed working on his family farm to alert townsfolk and the Gloucester militia and later to facilitate a prisoner-of-war exchange. Opening with a scene in which Lemuel ineptly drops the fish he’s finally caught and nearly swamps the boat, the author introduces a character readers will sympathize with. Out of place in a world of boys who have been fishing all their lives, Lemuel has grown up with tales of Revolutionary War heroism and the fearsome British navy. When the War of 1812 comes to Sandy Bay, it is nothing like that. The sailors are just like people he knows; it’s the Gloucester militia who make things difficult. Sticking reasonably closely to the known facts of the invasion, Sanchez has written a lively third-person account of a little-known event, with believable dialogue and plenty of detail about daily life that should be welcomed by readers of the genre. (Historical fiction. 10-14)