Mercy's Mill

Levin, Betty

ISBN 10: 068811122X ISBN 13: 9780688111229

Publisher: Greenwillow, 1992

Synopsis

Sarah feels lonely in her family's new country home until she meets a strange boy who tells her an almost unbelievable tale of his plight, in a novel of time travel that moves between Colonial days and the present.

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Reviews

Grade 6-9-- This suspenseful time-travel novel centers around an old stone mill and those who have lived near it in years past. Teenage Sarah and her family have recently moved there to rebuild the mill and grind flour, and she hates this spooky place where she feels watched all the time by unseen eyes. After a freak midwin ter lightning storm, she finds a strange boy by the pond. He tells her that he lived there in the 1850s as did his young friend Mercy, but in the late 1600s. Sarah slowly pieces their strange stories together, with the help of information she finds in the town's historical records, and learns about the atrocities they endured as slaves. She is intrigued by their escape through time, and, possessed by her own unhappiness, considers a similar solution for herself. As she becomes more involved with their lives, with the long history of the mill, and with problems in her own family, her own concerns fade. A sense of history, of place, and of other people's needs help her to reach out to her visitor from the past and to her own family. She gains the courage to put down roots, to begin her new life, and to experience compassion. The stories of the young people from the past are skillfully interwoven with Sarah's, and they reach a sat isfying conclusion. Attentive readers will be swept from one layer of discovery to the next in this intriguing, multilayered book. --Virginia Golodetz, St. Michael's College, Winooski, VT
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Sarah is unhappy about moving to an old house by a mill in rural Massachusetts. She feels bored and lonely even though she is surrounded by her boisterous family, and becomes interested in her new home only when she meets a strange boy named Jethro who cryptically describes the house as "the same and not the same." He speaks about the dwelling and the mill as if they were in another place, but even more peculiar, in another time. Sarah is quickly caught up in a chilling mystery which defies everything she knows about the physical world. This gripping tale interweaves the lives of four characters from three different eras--Mercy, from colonial days; Jethro, from the early 1800s; and contemporary Sarah and her foster sister Janey--and an eerie parallel emerges as their histories are gradually revealed. Levin masterfully explores the concept of time, in an illuminating blend of history and fantasy. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Greenwillow
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 068811122X
• ISBN 13: 9780688111229
• Binding: Library Binding
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 241