The Place at the Edge of the Earth - Hardcover

Rice, Bebe Faas

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0618159789 ISBN 13: 9780618159789

Publisher: Clarion Books, 2002

Synopsis

Moving to Fort Sayers, an army base built on the site of an old Native American school, with her mother and new stepfather, Jenny discovers that her room is haunted by the ghost of a boy named Jonah Flying Cloud, who died at the school in 1880, and she must uncover the dark secrets of the past in order to free his spirit.

About this title

About the Author

Bebe Faas Rice is the author of sixteen children's books, including CLASS TRIP (HarperCollins), which was an Edgar nominee, and THE YEAR THE WOLVES CAME (Dutton). She lives in Falls Church, Virginia.

Reviews

Grade 5-8-This ghost story unfolds through the first-person narration of both Jenny in the present and Jonah Flying Cloud in the late 1880s. The characters appear in one another's time, but only Jonah is caught there. He and other Lakota children have been forced to go to a boarding school to be stripped of their heritage and to learn the ways of the white man. Jenny, her mother, and new stepfather have just come to Fort Sayers, the site of the events Jonah relates. Accommodation to injustice is impossible for his fiery friend Swift Running River and he is lynched after an altercation with one of his exploiters. In the present day, the boastful son of the commanding general becomes Jenny's partner in her search into the past, and their lively, often humorous exchanges leaven the heaviness of the horrendous treatment endured by the Lakota children. Logic is not the book's strong suit, as it is never clear why or how Jenny appears in the 1880s, except that time is a poorly understood continuum. This slipstream effect, however, doesn't seem to apply to Jonah, who is stuck until Jenny shares her philosophy of choice and comes up with an eagle memento for his grave. The patronizing quality of the solution is diminished by the earnest quality of the two characters' interactions, but the stereotypical way in which Jonah's speech is portrayed is less acceptable. Jenny is an appealing heroine and her story of adjustment to a new place and family is the most successful aspect of the story. -Carol A. Edwards, Sonoma County Library, Santa Rosa, CA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Clarion Books
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0618159789
• ISBN 13: 9780618159789
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192