This month's book reviews

A young girl lives through the last days
of orphan trains and of vaudeville theater

Eleven-year-old Deirdre O'Rourke can't believe it when she and her two brothers are put on an orphan train and transported west to find families that might take them in. She knew her mother was desperate because she and her three kids were thrown out of their small New York City basement room for non-payment of rent. Deirdre just couldn't believe things were bad enough that their mother felt she had to break up the family and send her children off to unknown futures. Sean had worked and made a little money. Deirdre had sung Irish songs on the street for donated pennies. It seemed it just wasn't enough to buy food and keep a roof over their heads.

As the orphan train moved westward, the kids were displayed in towns across the Mid-west and people were invited to look them over and pick an orphan to take home with them. Deirdre and her older brother, Sean, along with little four-year-old Jimmy, tried everything they knew to try to stay together. But it turned out to be impossible.

Everybody in town knew that the first family that picked Deirdre would mistreat her. But, by the time that was made know to the adoption people, the orphan train had already moved on.

One of the ministers from a church in town reluctantly volunteered to take Deirdre home and, hopefully, his wife would agree to take her in. As it turned out, the mean-spirited wife did not want Deirdre in her home, but she couldn't refuse because she was afraid the townspeople wouldn't think she and her husband were good Christians if they didn't take the poor orphan in. And so Deirdre began a miserable life in a home dominated by a woman who hated her.

The rest of the story tells how Deirdre finally found a way to join a real family and try to use her singing talents to make a life for herself as a vaudeville performer. She worried about her brothers. Had they found good homes, or were they being mistreated? You need to read the book to find out if Deirdre was successful in show business and if she was ever able to track down her lost brothers.

 

Can an author through her books make
kids do things they wouldn't otherwise do?

Frannie is a sixth grader whose family has just moved to Baltimore. Her family moves around a lot. The moving makes it tough for Frannie and her brother and sister to constantly be making new friends and trying to "fit in." Frannie says her approach is "to hide in plain sight until somebody finds me." It helps a little that she reads anything and everything that she lays her hand on. Having a good book with you all the time means you have something to do and you don't have to worry about impressing the strangers around you.

Frannie, almost by accident, discovers that there is a series of books for kids called "Chillers" books. The author is I. M. Fine and the latest one is called "The Worm Turns." What Frannie and her new friend, Beamer, come to realize is that the book seems to be responsible for an unbelievable fad among kids - playing with "Jelly Worms." Every kid who reads the book feels compelled to buy the candy worms and play with them all the time. Kids wear the worms as earrings and put them in their hair and use them every way they can think of. You just aren't cool unless you are into the Jelly Worm fad.

Frannie is quite concerned that any author could have this strange power over millions of kids just because they read a book. What if the author wrote about dangerous behaviors or a terrible illness that kids would pick up from reading the books? What makes it even worse for Frannie is that nobody believes her when she sounds the alarm about I. M. Fine and these potentially dangerous books.

The story is concerned with how Frannie and Beamer track down I. M. Fine and try to keep the author from deliberately hurting the kids of America though the Chillers series. It turns out that hurting kids is the author's real intention. How can Frannie get adults to believe her? Can a couple of kids really stop I. M. Fine? If you read Diane Stanley's "The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine" you will find the answer to these questions.

 

Can there be animal ghosts
just like there's people ghosts?

Mandy Hope helps her mom and dad run Animal Ark, a clinic that treats all kinds of animals. Her school is planning a field trip to an old coalmine. Mandy was distressed to hear that the old mines used Shetland ponies down in the mines to help bring out the coal. When her class visited the mine, Mandy found out that as part of the exhibit there were some of the old mining ponies or, at least, their descendents kept in a corral. One particularly beautiful pony was named "Flame" because of his flaming red coat.

One of the old mine employees told her about a pony that many years before had saved some miners that were trapped in a mine cave-in. The pony had led the miners out a seldom-used passageway.

When Mandy was down in the mine for her visit, she imagined that she could seen eyes gleaming in the darkness - the eyes of a pony. Of course, nobody believed that she actually saw a pony in the mine, because ponies had not been used for decades. They had been replaced by machinery.

On a later trip, Mandy and some others find that they themselves are trapped in the mine by an earthquake. Again, she sees the "ghost" horse. He looks just like "Flame." There's no way Flame could be down in that mine. Can she and her friends actually be saved by an animal that couldn't possibly be real? If you think you would like a book that combines animals, a ghost, and a mystery all together, you should look into "Colt in theCave."

 

If you want to read about old-time
pirates, this is the book for you

In the 1680's, Port Royal is a busy seaport located in the Caribbean on the island of Jamaica. It is the home of the British governor of the island as well as sailors from many different nations. Some of the sailors are honest seaman and some of them are clearly interested in piracy. In fact, the governor himself had once been a pirate. Port Royal is where fourteen-year-old orphan, Davy Shea, is sent from England to join his uncle, after the death of his mother.

Davy's Uncle Patrick, it turns out, is called "Patch" because he is a ship's doctor. His job has been to patch up sailors on ships of war when they are wounded in sea battles or, even, dockside brawls. Luckily, Davy had been taught to read when younger, so his uncle was willing to take responsibility for him and take him on as an assistant when returning to sea as a ship's doctor. When Davy goes to sea on his first voyage with his uncle, he thinks he is sailing on a small British navy ship. The crew looks really rough, but the officers are British naval officers. To Davy's surprise, when once at sea, the ship raises the skull and crossbones flag of a pirate vessel.

The rest of the book is filled with sea battles and other adventures. Davy finds out that all is not what it appears to be. At the end of the book, we find that this one is just the first of a series of books with Davy and his uncle as major characters.