Synopsis
The author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee adds to his more than two dozen books on frontier America with the story of a boy who makes an adventure-filled journey across Kansas and Missouri to Bright Star, Indiana, during the Civil War. 35,000 first printing.
Reviews
YA-In this exciting tale, Ben Butterfield, an elderly ex-circus performer, reflects on his life. The story chronicles the experiences of a youthful Ben, his friend and mentor Johnny Hawkes, and a young girl, Princess. In 1862 Ben and Johnny join a wagon train moving baggage and supplies for soldiers marching north from Texas. Two camels and their cameleer, Hadjee, are also with the wagon train when a Union cavalry platoon near Springfield, MO, overtakes the travelers and declares all of the animals to be contraband of war. The platoon commander talks Ben, Johnny, and the faithful Hadjee into driving the camels to his farm in Bright Star, IN. The three set off on a dangerous journey through war-torn territory. When Johnny is captured by the Yankees and charged with stealing a horse (his own), Ben and Hadjee forge ahead to Bright Star with the help of Princess. This story is not only a grand adventure but also deals with friendship, coming-of-age, unity, and perseverance in the face of obstacles. Young adults, particularly those who have read Brown's other books, will delight in this look at life in frontier America.
Carol Clark, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Returning to the westerns he tells so well, Brown, best known for Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1971), takes us on a peculiar odyssey of youth and innocence during the turmoil of the Civil War. The spirited tale opens in 1902, when narrator Ben Butterfield, a gimp-legged former circus horseback performer who is now the harried proprietor of a hardware store, attempts "to set down the story of my wasted life" before he forgets the adventure that was its high point. Forty years earlier, in the spring of 1862 in northwest Arkansas, young Ben embarks on an unlikely journey. A Yankee officer assigns him, cavalry scout Johnny Hawkes and Egyptian cameleer Hadjee the duty of transporting two camels, the officer's own personal contraband, from Arkansas to his farm in Bright Star, Indiana. Traveling across Arkansas and Missouri in 1862 turns out to be a tricky proposition as Ben and his comrades meet Rebs and Yanks, shysters, thieves and all-around mean-spirited folks. After witnessing a bungled bank robbery, Ben's party offers sanctuary to a luckless robber who turns out to be a young girl. Now fugitive themselves, the party is pursued by the law and by a crazy gunman?who is after more than just gold. Short on action but studded with colorful vignettes, this sentimental story reflects, both buoyantly and tenderly, the moments of love, friendship and fame its Huckleberry Finn-like protagonist briefly enjoyed.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
An amiable, rather autumnal novel about the coming-of-age of an orphan during the Civil War, by a prolific western historian (The American West, 1994) and novelist (Conspiracy of Knaves, 1987, etc.). In a lively, appropriately picaresque narrative, Ben Butterfield, in the twilight of the 19th century, looks back at his life on the frontier and muses about the great love of his life. Orphaned under mysterious circumstances, Ben spent a hardscrabble childhood in Texas before falling in with the laconic (and somewhat lethal) scout Johnny Hawkes, a man supremely skilled in all matters having to do with horses. In 1862, Johnny and Ben, an adolescent, are recruited, by an arrogant and somewhat duplicitous Union officer, to drive two camels captured from the Confederate forces north to St. Louis, through the bloody, contested territory of Kansas and Missouri. Along the way they encounter outlaws, Confederates, a variety of hapless Union troops chasing both groups, some happily homicidal townspeople, and a young woman, Queen Elizabeth Jones, passing herself off as a boy. Elizabeth, Ben, Johnny, and the harried handler of the camels, an Egyptian named Hadjee, survive assaults and adventures, and Ben and Elizabeth, despite the obstacles, get the camels through. Meanwhile, Ben, confronted with crises and betrayals, grows up and falls in love with Elizabeth. Brown has a deft hand with dialogue, giving it a believable tang without overdoing the regional color, and his portraits of a war- ravaged countryside, devastated farms, and hard-bitten groups of men hunting each other across a harsh landscape are memorable and convincing. Ben, Elizabeth, and Johnny go on to join a circus, but their lives as entertainers, and the tragic end of Bens romance, are treated in a somewhat desultory fashion. Still, this is a sweet-natured, vigorous, colorful entertainment, and a compelling portrait of the frontier. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Brown will be remembered forever (or, at least for the foreseeable future) for his attitude-changing account of the Indian wars, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970), but since then he has also built up a solid reputation as a novelist. His abiding interest in the West, which compelled the writing of his nonfiction classic, also stands behind his fiction. His latest novel is a picaresque yarn whose main strength rests in its cast of colorful characters, whom readers quickly come to know as individuals and with whom they will want to spend time. Not that all these idiosyncratic men and woman are saints by any means; indeed, all are very human and as vibrant as the setting sun in western skies. The novel takes the form of a remembrance by Ben Butterfield, who, from the vantage point of the turn of the century, recalls a particular life-influencing experience that occurred in the spring and summer of 1862. As the War between the States raged, young Ben was a helper to wagon master John Hawkes in transporting two camels left over from a confiscated baggage train from Texas all the way to a farm in Indiana. It was not only the mighty Mississippi that stood in their path but also bank robbers and traders and other sorts who had no better business than to thwart the camel drivers. But the people young Ben meets changed him forever, and his crossing of the vast prairie during those pivotal months of his early life presents a very compelling narrative that all of Brown's many readers will enjoy. Brad Hooper
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