Synopsis
Etta and her brother and sister, wards of the state of Massachusetts in 1840, have been parceled off to separate foster homes. Determined to gather her family back together and create a secure home for herself and her siblings, Etta has run away from the last in a long string of foster homes, resolved to find a place where they can live as a family. In her search, she encounters Walter, a young runaway who is hiding out from his alcoholic father in a cabin on the New Haven and Northampton Canal. Before she can get her own family together, Etta gets caught up in Walter's problems, which include the transportation of a body up a mountain in the dead of night, convincing the canal company to hire them as a security team, and catching the vandals who are determined to sabotage the canal.
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About the Author
Carol Otis Hurst has authored several novels for young adults, including Through the Lock, In Plain Sight, and A Killing in Plymouth Colony, in addition to her many professional books for teachers and librarians. A former teacher and librarian herself, Carol Otis Hurst is the columnist for Teaching K8 Magazine and conducts workshops on storytelling and children's literature around the country. She is the mother of two daughters and grandmother of two grandsons. She lives in Westfield, Massachusetts.
From Booklist
Gr. 5-8. Part historical fiction, part survival adventure, this story will grab readers from the first page. On the run from her dreary foster home, orphan Etta, 11, finds shelter in an abandoned cabin near the newly developed canal in nineteenth-century Connecticut. A boy, Walter, confronts her; it's his house. What's she doing there? Reluctantly, he allows her to stay. Used to being alone, he is grim, compulsively tidy, and tight-lipped, answering in monosyllables when she tries to find out why he left home. "Good grief!" he shouts, "Will you never stop?" Gradually, the children do open up to one another and begin to draw other people into the home they build on the canal. Etta and Walter's terse conversations, anguished and funny, are the best part of the book, and the history is fascinating, including what the canal means to the community. Walter is thrilled to be part of the new engineering, but the local farmers are threatened by it, and the story reveals why. There's the same complexity in individual people. Etta's dream is to reunite her family, but her brother prefers to stay on the farm he loves, and her older sister wants the sociality of town, even though her work in the mill is harsh. A long episode about the death of Walter's father and the disposal of the body is not as taut as the scenes in the cabin. What will hold readers is the elemental drama of friendship and building a home. Hazel Rochman
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Through the Lock
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
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Through the Lock
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: Good. Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00058362354