Mutiny's Daughter - Hardcover

Rinaldi, Ann

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060296380 ISBN 13: 9780060296384

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2004

Synopsis

In a fictional twist to the common tale, mutineer Fletcher Christian of the HMS Bounty escapes the massacre on Pitcairn Island and finds his way back to his daughter Mary who, despite the disgrace and mistreatment she has received by her classmates, longs to be reunited with him after so much time apart.

About this title

About the Author

Readers have come to know Ann Rinaldi for her richly satisfying historical fiction. Eight of her novels have been named ALA Best Books for Young Adults, including Time Enough for Drums, The Last Silk Dress, Break with Charity, and Wolf by the Ears. Author of more than thirty books for young readers, including a book in the Dear America series, she was awarded the National History Award from the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1994.

Reviews

Grade 5-8--Once again, Rinaldi has unearthed a historical nugget and polished it into a gem of a story. This intriguing novel is based on the premise of what could have happened if the notorious Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian returned to England with his five-year-old daughter, who was born on Pitcairn Island, and left her on the Isle of Man to be raised by his mother, before he went into hiding. Now 14, Mary is forced to live a lie, as she must pretend that her uncle is her father in order to save the family's good name. Still, she wonders about the whereabouts of her real father, and hopes that she will someday see him again. When her grandmother sends her off to a fashionable girls' school in London, this secret becomes a great burden for her to bear, and she must stand up to a fellow student who is threatening to expose her. In the end, through a selfless act, she is finally reunited with the father for whom she has been longing. The author sets the scene with an introduction that provides a bit of background and sifts through what is fact and what is fiction in a note at the end. The characters are well drawn and believable and the 19th-century English setting is vividly presented. This clever, well-written historical novel may just inspire curious readers to investigate the personalities and events on which the story is based.--Kimberly Monaghan, formerly at Vernon Area Public Library, IL
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Gr. 5-7. Having mined American history for controversial figures (Benedict Arnold in Finishing Becca, 1994; John Brown in Mine Eyes Have Seen, 1998), Rinaldi shifts her gaze to a similarly notorious Englishman: Fletcher Christian, the lead mutineer of the HMS Bounty. The evocative premise is outlined in the foreword: What if Christian secretly returned to England with his 5-year-old, half-Tahitian daughter, Mary? The story opens nine years later, as Mary, forced by paranoid guardians to hide her origins, heads for a posh London boarding school. Tension arises from a manipulative classmate bent upon outing her secret, along with news that her father, whom she can't remember, may be nearby. The consequences of exposing her connection are never articulated clearly enough to justify Mary's spiraling anxieties, and the many secondary characters (including a cameo by Samuel Coleridge), along with the sundry historical references, can be distracting. Still, Mary's yearning for her father is affecting, and Rinaldi's writing, at its best, evokes London of the early nineteenth century with precision. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060296380
• ISBN 13: 9780060296384
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 218