Luke on the High Seas - Hardcover

Pryor, Bonnie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688171346 ISBN 13: 9780688171346

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2000

Synopsis

When Luke Reed left his prairie home to accompany Uncle Eli to Boston, he passed hordes of fortune seekers heading west to join the Gold Rush. It seems there's money to be made out there, and Uncle Eli doesn't want to miss out on any of it. In this new adventure, the duo is off again, this time making the perilous voyage by clipper ship to the goldfields of California.

Luke and his friend Toby wonder how they'll keep themselves occupied on the long voyage, but not for long. Besides the everyday risks of stormy weather and shark-infested waters, they face a whole set of unexpected challenges, including a cabin boy with a mysterious secret and a pirate ship that they just can't seem to outrun.

Full of action and gripping suspense, this American Adventure will have readers turning the pages to find out how Luke braves the turbulent seas.

About this title

About the Author:

Bonnie Pryor thoroughly researched important periods of American history for each of her American Adventures. For Luke on the High Seas, she delved into seafaring in the nineteenth century so that the details of Luke Reed's journey would be accurate. She lives in Gambier, Ohio. In Her Own Words...

"I grew up in Spokane, Washington, the middle child in a family of three girls. Books were a part of my life from as far back as I can remember. I was often in trouble for reading at the wrong time. I would be caught reading under the dining room table when I was supposed to be dusting, or reading under the covers by flashlight late at night-even hiding a novel inside my textbooks at school.

"Not everyone thought I read too much. I remember a school librarian who saved all the new books for me to read first, and on several occasions she gave me presents of books. Perhaps she felt she should because I had read every single thing in her library!

"I was very shy, and, like Robert in The Plum Tree War, I spent a lot of my time hanging from my knees from a favorite plum tree, telling myself stories. Of course since I was raised in the West these stories were usually about wild horses and cowboys, and I was always the heroine who came to the rescue. The stories were long and involved, sometimes going on for days. I was always impatient to get to my tree each day so I could find out what was going to happen next, but I was too lazy to write the stories down.

"I think everyone expected me to become a writer, but it took me twenty years and a gentle nudge from my husband, Robert, to build up the courage to try. In the meantime I moved to Ohio, worked at a variety of jobs, and raised a family. I have four grown children, eight grandchildren, and two daughters still at home-Jenny and Chrissy. Many of my books are loosely based upon incidents in my children's lives, and they often appear as characters, in personality if not by name.

"My family recently moved to the country. When I'm not writing and visiting schools, we're busy building barns and fences and laying out flower beds. In addition, we all take part in caring for the four newcomers to our home: three horses and a bunny!"

From Kirkus Reviews:

Veteran middle-grade novelist Pryor (Thomas in Danger, 1999, etc.) offers another sturdy, appealing entry in her growing series of historical novels set in 18th- and 19th-century America. Luke: 1849--On the Golden Trail (not reviewed) brought the young protagonist from his Iowa home back East to Boston. This new, fast-paced tale transports Luke from his uncle Eli's home in Boston and around the Horn on a swift Yankee Clipper Ship, en route to the California gold fields. Adult readers will probably find the plot a bit creaky: facile friendships between Luke and Toby (the son of Uncle Eli's former slave housekeeper Miss Maisie) and the orphaned cabin boy (who's really a girl in disguise), a conniving thief who conspires to hijack the ship, a mysterious letter (written in code) with directions to a secret California gold mine. However, the plot is leavened by the budding romance between Uncle Eli and the ship's perky Irish cook (Colleen) and further spiced with horrendous ocean storms, icebergs, pirates, and a chillingly authentic shark attack on the wounded Uncle Eli. Pryor is adept at such time-honored pot-boiler techniques like ambiguous yet intriguing chapter headings, cliffhanger chapter endings, and the well-placed (though sometimes ham-handed) foreshadowing of future plot twists. The five page afterword More About . . . provides historical context and expands on the situations and events in the novel. This is certainly not The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (1990) but no matter: it will keep 'em engaged--and reading. (Fiction. 10-12) -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0688171346
• ISBN 13: 9780688171346
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176
• Illustrator: Dodson Bert