The literal-minded Bruno, with amazingly little political and social awareness, never gains comprehension of the prisoners (all in “striped pajamas”) or the malignant nature of the death camp. 10-14)Īfter Hitler appoints Bruno’s father commandant of Auschwitz, Bruno (nine) is unhappy with his new surroundings compared to the luxury of his home in Berlin. Though not a happily-ever-after tale, it dramatizes how one person can stand up to unfairness, be it in front of Senate hearings or in the classroom. The dialogue is sharp, carrying a good part of this story of friends and foes, guilt and courage-a story that ought to send readers off to find out more about McCarthy, his witch-hunt and the First Amendment. Cushman offers a fine sense of the times with such cultural references as President Truman, Hopalong Cassidy, Montgomery Clift, Lucky Strike, “duck and cover” and the Iron Curtain. This is not a story about the McCarthy era so much as one about how one girl-who has been trained to be quiet and obedient by her school, family, church and culture-learns to speak up for herself. When she meets Sophie Bowman and her father, she’s encouraged to think about issues in the news: the atomic bomb, peace, communism and blacklisting. It’s 1949, and 13-year-old Francine Green lives in “the land of ‘Sit down, Francine’ and ‘Be quiet, Francine’ ” at All Saints School for Girls in Los Angeles. Historical events are placed in context in an afterward. While the dialogue is frequently uneven and some plot details are not always credible, the action and suspense will keep readers interested, as will the touching friendship forged by the two protagonists and the startling revelation at the end that forces Jesse to keep yet other promises to the dead. Other setbacks include an armed skirmish the reappearance of the slave hunter seemingly at every turn and the ever-present dangers that beset other runaway slaves the boys meet (some of who turn out to be Perry's relatives).
Through an unlikely coincidence, they easily locate Lydia’s friend, but she proves unhelpful. The boys are ultimately reunited-with great difficulty-but their troubles are hardly over. Jesse is brutally attacked by his nemesis, a vicious slave hunter, who kidnaps Perry. After Lydia dies, the boys make their way to Baltimore, where they get caught up in a riot instigated by Confederate sympathizers against Union troops heading South. Perry is the child of this friend’s deceased brother, and Lydia believes that she is Perry's only hope for safety. Twelve-year-old Jesse Sherman is accosted at knifepoint in the woods near his home in rural Maryland by Lydia, a dying runaway slave, who implores Jesse to take her small son, Perry, to a white friend in Baltimore. In this fast-paced but flawed historical novel, Hahn ( Anna All Year Round, 1998, etc.) recounts the harrowing story, told in the first person, of a journey undertaken by two young boys in the early days of the Civil War and of the bond that develops between them.