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Dahlberg, Maurine F.
4 Reviews
(4)
4-6
Thirteen-year-old slave Jonas must accompany his master's cruel son from their home in Missouri to the Kansas Territory gold fields. They join a wagon train led by a kindly man with abolitionist leanings who puts thoughts of freedom into Jonah's head. Though Jonah's naiveté is tiresome, his conflicting emotions are believable, given his situation. An author's note provides more information.
Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz
(2)
4-6
In this fast-moving story set in 1961 East Berlin in the weeks leading up to the construction of the Wall, Heidi's parents decide it is time to secretly escape to the West. Heidi's first-person narration keeps readers in a front-row seat to thrilling events, and her voice is very much that of an ordinary and likable young teen rising to the challenge of extraordinary demands.
Reviewer: Roger Sutton
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
November, 2004
(3)
4-6
Hoping it's temporary, Gilly stays with slave-owning relatives in Virginia while her widowed father prospects for gold in Colorado. The eleven-year-old westerner is uncomfortable with formality and appalled by slavery, vulnerable, and a bit clueless (taking quite a while to see her aunt's role in the Underground Railroad). Readers will enjoy being a half-step ahead of Gilly, which is one of the many satisfactions in this historical novel.
Reviewer: Kitty Flynn
(4)
4-6
Greta's mother, still mourning the death of Greta's brother, doesn't realize her daughter is a gifted pianist. Greta arranges for lessons on her own and performs her first recital just as the Nazis take over her homeland of Austria. A too tidy epilogue has all the important characters escaping Europe unhurt, but the setting is well realized in this first novel.
Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth
4 reviews
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