Captain Kate - Softcover

Carolyn Reeder

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1890920142 ISBN 13: 9781890920142

Publisher: Children's Literature, 2002

Synopsis

Kate has always looked forward to her family's canal boat trips to Washington City, but this year everything has changed. Papa is dead and Mama has remarried, bringing a stepsister and stepbrother into their family. Kate's new stepfather is off fighting for the Union, and now Mama's expecting a new baby, making the trip they planned impossible. But Kate refuses to give up; her family depends on the income from the coal they haul down the C&O Canal. Kate knows every one of the 184 miles of the waterway between Cumberland, Maryland and Georgetown by heart, as well as how to steer the boat and handle the mules that pull it.But Kate can't make the trip alone. As much as she resents her stepbrother, Seth, she needs his help; so with Kate at the tiller, and Seth walking beside the mules, the two set off, risking encounters with rebels, managing the canal's locks, and hiding the fact that they are two children traveling alone. But along the way, Kate discovers that working together not only means survival, it brings the understanding that will help her belong to a real family once again. Keystone to Reading Book Award Masterlist Black-Eyed Susan Book Award, Masterlist Maryland Children s Book Award Masterlist

About this title

About the Author

For decades, Carolyn Reeder's life was defined by roles and passages. First, the daughter growing up in Washington, D.C., next a student at The American University, and finally the longest-held roles of all: wife, mother, teacher. She is still a wife, but she s an out-of-work mother now that her children are grown, and she left her job as a reading teacher in order to have more time to write. Now, instead of roles, she has facets hiker, table tennis player, history buff, book lover, friend, theater goer, writer. . . Today, writing is an end in itself, but at first it was simply an outgrowth of the Reeder family's hiking experiences in Shenandoah National Park. It all began when Carolyn and her husband wrote a nonfiction adult book about the mountain people who were displaced when the park was established. They worked together on two more books about the history of that area of Virginia and its people before Carolyn began to write historical fiction for children and young teens. Carolyn Reeder s career as a writer took off when her first novel, Shades of Gray, won the Scott O Dell Award for Historical Fiction and numerous other honors. Her books often appear on the recommended reading lists of schools and libraries as well as on state reading award master lists. Several novels have been recognized as Notable Children s Trade Books in the Field of Social Studies or listed on the New York Public Library s Books for the Teenage. Asked why she chose to write historical fiction, Carolyn Reeder replies, "My childhood enjoyment of the Little House Books no doubt pointed me in that direction, but the main reason is that I enjoy the research. Research is my excuse to read in depth on fascinating subjects, to talk with people I wouldn't otherwise meet, to go places that I wouldn t ordinarily think of visiting and to call it work." Carolyn Reeder s historical fiction for young people: Across the Lines The Before the Creeks Ran Red Trilogy: Timothy Donovan s Story Joseph Schwartz s Story Gregory Howard s Story Captain Kate Foster's War Grandpa's Mountain Moonshiner's Son Shades of Gray The Secret Project Notebook Adult nonfiction co-authored with Jack Reeder Shenanoah Heritage: The Story of the People Before the Park Shenandoah Vestiges: What the Mountain People Left Behind Shenandoah Secrets: The Story of the Park's Hidden Past

Edition details

• Publisher: Children's Literature
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1890920142
• ISBN 13: 9781890920142
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 210