The author of Stealing Freedom (1998) again runs a strong-minded young person headlong into barriers of custom and racial prejudice. Inspired by the camaraderie and quiet heroism of the life-saving crew, with which he shares North Carolina’s lonely Pea Island, Nathan dreams of joining the US Life-Saving Service (a predecessor of the Coast Guard) rather than to be a fisherman like his father. The odds are long—LSS jobs tend to stay within the same local families and in this post-Reconstruction era, the Pea Island crew is the only African-American one on the entire coast. But as Nathan is allowed to take part in life-saving drills, then to watch and even become involved in rescuing the passengers and crews of ships driven onto the area’s rocks by storms, his desire only grows. Carbone draws the crew, their techniques, and the shipwrecks straight from historical records, and though her protagonist is fictional, the harsh attitudes he encounters are all too real. In the end, his ex-slave grandfather’s wise observation, that “sometimes your dreams show up dressed a little different than you thought they’d be” proves prophetic. Nathan finds that his skill in tending to the injured, and his mastery of the station’s first-aid guides, has opened a road to medical school. While every bit as rousing a tale of men against the sea as Donna Hill’s Shipwreck Season (1998), another tribute to the US Life-Saving Service, Nathan’s narrative also creates a vivid picture of his time’s harsh racial storms. (afterword) (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-80664-4
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Readers won’t find this neighbor strange; he merely entertains an age-old desire to fly. But hark back a 120 years, when this story takes place, and one can begin to appreciate the skeptics who surround Melville Murrell, technically the creator of the first human-powered airplane two decades before the Wright brothers. To the narrator, it’s strange that “our neighbor” studies birds, makes drawings, and tries to be airborne. The title sentence becomes a bleating refrain, turning the book into a one-kick joke when Murrell’s contraption flies and the narrator is almost rendered speechless. Krudop’s paintings, with their great slabs of vibrant color, are atmospheric delights, conjuring up Murrell as the eccentric his neighbors believe him to be, and the era as one in which innovators were no more appreciated—at least till they struck it rich—than they are today. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30107-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
With a large scope to belie its length, a novella that paints in simple scenes of the battle of Gettysburg the essential sorrow and causes of the entire Civil War. Banks (Under the Shadow of Wings, 1997, etc.) introduces Abraham Small, an ex-slave whose humble life near Gettysburg is interrupted when he meets Lamar, an innocent young Confederate soldier who is without racial prejudices. They spend a pleasant afternoon together and part as friends, but Abraham realizes that he must fight against slavery in the coming battle. Banks follows the fates of her characters, including a meeting of Abraham Small and Abraham Lincoln, through succinct scenes that effortlessly include facts and statistics of the battle. While some transitions are too abrupt, the author places the lives of the characters within a context of real history, and gives readers an understanding of the soaring words and effect of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. This is a poignant and effective introduction to the Civil War, to use alongside Gary Paulsen’s Soldier’s Heart (1998). (Fiction. 9-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81779-7
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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