Ms. Carbone says she wrote this historical novel abut the founding of Jamestown partly because teachers and librarians asked her to do so. Apparently, there’s not much out there, fiction-wise, for young people set in Jamestown.
Blood on the River is the story of Samuel Collier, a street urchin with an attitude from the streets of London. Samuel was a real person about whom little or nothing is really known, so Ms. Carbone made up this story about him. It’s a good, adventurous, historically educational tale full of sound and fury and of course, blood. Samuel is flawed, but likable hero, servant to Captain John Smith. Samuel’s difficult childhood has taught him to fight for whatever he needs or wants and not to trust anyone. Life in Jamestown and especially the example of Captain Smith teach Samuel that in the New World everyone must work and work together in order to survive.
The book highlights the tension between the “gentlemen” settlers of Jamestown who were looking for gold and quick riches and those who were sent or came with the intention of making a new life for themselves. Tension and finally enmity also developed between the English settlers and the Native groups who were already resident in the land. Samuel, however, learns that he can avoid trouble by using his head and controlling his temper.
I started teaching my co-op class on American History and Literature on September 3rd, and if I had already read it I would have had this book on the reading list. I would recommend it for any group of young people (middle school to high school) who are studying this time period.
My U.S. history class was reading about Roanoke and Jamestown colonies this month, as I would guess many other U.S. history classes all over the nation are doing about now. The following books are from the children’s and young adult sections of the library, but I enjoyed them all. Actually, I find the best nonfiction in the children’s book area. Children’s authors seem to have honed the ability to explain history and science and other topics in economical but engaging prose. And children’s and young adult historical fiction usually emphasizes the history and the adventure rather than trying to work romance into every story.
Roanoke, the Lost Colony
The Lost Colony of Roanoke by Jean Fritz. Putnam, 2004.
Mystery of the Lost Colony by Lee Miller. Scholastic, 2007.
Roanoke The Lost Colony: An Unsolved Mystery from History by Heidi Stemple and Jane Yolen. Simon & Schuster, 2003. I tried to get this one, but my library system doesn’t have a copy. This series sounds like something I would really enjoy since it includes several other “mysteries of history.”
Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America
1607, A New Look at Jamestown by Karen E. Lange. Photographs by Ira Block. National Geographic, 2007. Published in honor of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, this book features National Geographic-style photographs taken on site at Jamestown Rediscovery, a working archeological site where new discoveries about the life and history of the Jamestown settlers continue to be made. The most important change in the modern views of the history of Jamestown comes from tree ring research that shows that the colonists’ descent into chaos and starvation may have been due to drought more than to laziness and ineptitude. John Rolfe’s superior tobacco plants imported from Trinidad and the arrival of 147 “Maids for VIrginia” in 1619 may have saved the day and the colony.
John Smith Escapes Again! by Rosalyn Schanzer. Another title from National Geographic (2006), but with a totally different feel and character, Schanzer’s biography of John Smith brings out the legendary qualities of a man who lived big and told even bigger stories. “In his day, John Smith was probably the greatest escape artist on the planet. He escaped from danger over and over, and not only from Indians, but from angry mobs, slave drivers, French pirates, and even the deep blue sea.” The illustrations are cartoon-like with lots of detail, and the text is exciting to match an exciting life. This one is my favorite of all the books on this list.
The Double Life of Pocahontas by Jean Fritz. An historically accurate account of the life of Pocahontas, the Indian princess who moved between the worlds of her own Powhatan tribe and that of the British settlers in Jamestown.
Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker. In Written in Bone, Ms. Walker accompanies forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley, a scientist at the Smithsonian Institution, at his invitation, as he and colleagues from several related disciplines study the remains of some of the Jamestown settlers and of other early colonials who lived in the Chesapeake region of Maryland. Full Semicolon review here.
The World of Captain John Smith by Genevieve Foster. I really like the series of books by Ms. Foster that take a time period and focus on the life of a specific person from that time while also telling about what was going on all over the world in history.
Who’s Saying What in Jamestown, Thomas Savage? by Jean Fritz. 13 year old Thomas Savage arrived in Jamestown in January, 1608. In this book, Jean Fritz tells Thomas’s story in her inimitable style.
A Fictional Look at Jamestown and Roanoke
Cate of the Lost Colony by Lisa Klein. Catherine, one of Queen Elizabeth’s ladies in waiting and an admirer of Elizabeth’s favorite Sir Walter Raleigh, is banished to Raleigh’s colony at Roanoke. Semicolon review here. YA fiction.
Sabotaged by Margaret Peterson Haddix. Simon & Schuster, 2010. I read the first book in Haddix’s Missing series, Found, but I have yet to read the second book, Sent, or the third, Sabotaged. Sabotaged, I am told, features a missing child who turns out to be Virginia Dare. Middle grade/YA fiction.
The Lyon Saga, a trilogy about Roanoke by M. L. Stainer; the first volume is The Lyon’s Roar. Circleville Press, 1997. I read about this trilogy at The Fourth Musketeer. YA fiction.
Our Strange New Land: Elizabeth’s Jamestown Colony Diary by Patricia Hermes. Sequels are The Starving Time and Season of Promise. These three books are a part of Scholastic’s My America series for younger readers.
The Serpent Never Sleeps: A Novel of Jamestown and Pocahontas by Scot O’Dell. Serena Lynn follows her beloved Anthony Foxcroft to America to make a life in Jamestown. Protected by a magical serpent ring given to her by King James I himself, Serena will dare anything to follow her dreams. Later in the book, she becomes friends with the Indian girl Pocahontas and learns what it means to truly be a citizen of the New World. O’Dell is always good, and this particular novel, although not his best, is quite readable and informative. I got a fair idea of what King James I might have been like, and I’m not thinking I would want to be anywhere near his court.
The Corn Raid: A Story of the Jamestown Settlement by James Lincoln Collier. An indentured servant becomes friends with an Indian boy, but plans by the Jamestown colonists to steal the Indians’ corn threaten to derail and destroy the friendship.
Winter of the Dead by Elizabeth Massie. Nathaniel and Richard accompany Captain John Smith to Jamestown, and they find not gold, but rather hardship and starvation as they struggle along with the other colonists to survive their first winter in the new world.
Blood on the River by Elisa Carbone. Karate Kid read this book, too.
In this version, Jean Valjean is a man named John Johnson, and Cosette is a little girl named June Bug. Johnson and his assumed daughter June Bug travel the USA in their RV, seeing all the sights and parking in Walmart parking lots when they run out of money for campsites. There is no Inspector Javert, just a nice sheriff named Hadley Preston who wouldn’t hurt a flea or hunt down a thief. I thought there were a lot of holes in the plot, and June Bug, although somewhat endearing, is innocent and precocious in turn so that I kept having to look again to see how she was really supposed to be (nine years old). A single woman, who meets the pair in the Walmart parking lot and doesn’t know anything about them, invites father and daughter to live in her house while they’re waiting for a replacement part for the RV. I have my doubts that anyone with a lick of sense would extend such an invitation. John Johnson is too good to be true, and the real villain of the piece, whose name I won’t divulge, is way too bad to be quite believable –no redeeming qualities at all.
