About the Author:
For decades, Carolyn Reeder's life was defined by roles and passages. First, the daughter growing up in Washington, D.C., next a student at The American University, and finally the longest-held roles of all: wife, mother, teacher. She is still a wife, but she s an out-of-work mother now that her children are grown, and she left her job as a reading teacher in order to have more time to write. Now, instead of roles, she has facets hiker, table tennis player, history buff, book lover, friend, theater goer, writer. . . Today, writing is an end in itself, but at first it was simply an outgrowth of the Reeder family's hiking experiences in Shenandoah National Park. It all began when Carolyn and her husband wrote a nonfiction adult book about the mountain people who were displaced when the park was established. They worked together on two more books about the history of that area of Virginia and its people before Carolyn began to write historical fiction for children and young teens. Carolyn Reeder s career as a writer took off when her first novel, Shades of Gray, won the Scott O Dell Award for Historical Fiction and numerous other honors. Her books often appear on the recommended reading lists of schools and libraries as well as on state reading award master lists. Several novels have been recognized as Notable Children s Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies or listed on the New York Public Library s Books for the Teenage. Asked why she chose to write historical fiction, Carolyn Reeder replies, "My childhood enjoyment of the Little House Books no doubt pointed me in that direction, but the main reason is that I enjoy the research. Research is my excuse to read in depth on fascinating subjects, to talk with people I wouldn't otherwise meet, to go places that I wouldn t ordinarily think of visiting and to call it work." Carolyn Reeder s historical fiction for young people: Across the Lines The Before the Creeks Ran Red Trilogy: Timothy Donovan s Story Joseph Schwartz s Story Gregory Howard s Story Captain Kate Foster's War Grandpa's Mountain Moonshiner's Son Shades of Gray The Secret Project Notebook Adult nonfiction co-authored with Jack Reeder Shenanoah Heritage: The Story of the People Before the Park Shenandoah Vestiges: What the Mountain People Left Behind Shenandoah Secrets: The Story of the Park's Hidden Past
Review:
Grade 4-7-A novel set during the Civil War. Kate, 12, is resentful of her new stepfather who is away fighting in the Union army and of his children, 12-year-old Seth and 9-year-old Julia. When she learns that her mother plans to rent out the family canal boat for the summer, Kate decides that she will take the vessel the 184 miles down the Cumberland & Ohio Canal. Knowing that she can't possibly make the trip alone and left with no other options, she pressures her stepbrother to go along with her and they leave without her mother's knowledge. Stubborn and fiercely independent, Kate adamantly designates herself captain of The Mary Ann and has little patience with good-natured, virtuous Seth. With quiet resolve, the boy teaches her empathy and, by the novel's end, she has newfound respect and admiration for him. During the journey, she comes to terms with her father's death and realizes that she must accept changes. Julia, Kate's mother, and her stepfather are minor characters who pale in comparison to the thoughtfully created characters of Kate and Seth. Taking place primarily on the canal, the story has plenty of action and detailed descriptions of boats and life along the waterway. Tension builds gradually and is released at exact moments. Fans of Reeder's other books, especially Shades of Gray (Macmillan, 1989), are sure to appreciate this new offering. Shawn Brommer, Southern Tier Library System, Painted Post, NY Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --From School Library Journal 1999
Gr. 6^-8. Twelve-year-old Kate has never accepted her mother's remarriage, nor has she welcomed her stepbrother Seth and stepsister Julia into the family. With her step-father fighting in the Civil War and her mother laid up with complications of pregnancy, Kate decides to take her family's coal boat down the C&O Canal with only Seth to help. On the dangerous journey, prickly Kate must confront her worst fears and the worst parts of her nature, while Seth slowly earns her respect. Though in the end, Kate begins to accept her new family, Reeder never minimizes the magnitude of the pain Kate endures, nor the pain she causes others as she makes her transition. Kate's interior change is mirrored in the canal boat trip, another difficult journey with many steps, secrets, discomforts, perils, and unexpected pleasures. The setting makes this an unusual Civil War story for young people; the characters make it a rewarding one. Carolyn Phelan --From Booklist
Setting her story in the third year of the Civil War, Reeder (Foster's War, p. 61, etc.) writes of a young girl who takes it upon herself to pilot the family's canal boat 184 miles from Cumberland, Maryland to Georgetown. Kate, 12, learning that her newly remarried, pregnant mother plans to rent out the family's canal boat, decides to make the journey herself, grudgingly enlisting the help of her new stepbrother, Seth. As the two face the dangers of navigating the canal's locks, both are forced to accept and deal with unpleasant insights about themselves as well as one another. Reeder's detailed and realistic narrative of canal life provides a fascinating portrait of a period unique in US history. The real strength of the novel, however, is in the depiction of the complex, tangled relationship that forms between Kate and Seth, and the emotional growth they experience as they struggle to reconcile their feelings about sharing a new family. (Fiction. 10-14) --From Kirkus Reviews 1998
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