CROWS & CARDS
by Joseph Helgerson
Sandpiper Paperbacks
Hardcover: 9780618883950
Paperback: 9780547339092
Ages 8-12
352 pages
Zebulon “Zeb” Crabtree lives with his ma and pa and younger brothers and sisters on a farm more than a hundred miles north of the bustling river town of St. Louis, Missouri. In 1849, when Zeb turns 12, his pa decides it’s time for him to leave home and learn a trade.
Being on the puny side, having allergies and being scared of just about everything --- including slivers and leaving home --- Zeb doesn’t want to go. But after his family saves up enough money to pay for his steamboat ride, as well as his apprenticeship fee as a tanner with his great-uncle Seth in St. Louis, Zeb is on his way.
Alone and afraid, and holding his family’s investment in his future, Zeb rides down the Mississippi River. Things begin to look up when he finally makes a friend --- a finely dressed gentleman named Charles “Chilly” Larpenteur. Chilly is a riverboat gambler who agrees, for a small fee, to teach Zeb a skill that will make him rich beyond belief.
When Zeb steps off the steamboat in St. Louis, he witnesses sights and sounds and smells that amaze him. And that is when his journey of discovery really begins. While learning the tricks of the trade from Chilly, he befriends a slave, meets an Indian medicine man with amazing powers, and is asked to do some things that seem a lot like cheating to him. Zeb soon discovers that, like the mighty --- and muddy --- Mississippi River, things don’t always run smoothly. Sometimes life’s choices get murky, and there is danger hidden beneath the surface. He must decide which course to follow.
CROWS & CARDS is an engaging story about the independent-minded Zeb and the choices he makes, the lessons he learns, and the people he meets along his journey. Told in a good old-fashioned storyteller’s voice reminiscent of Mark Twain, this is a coming-of-age tale with a timeless message about making the right choices and understanding that the gift of family is a treasure more valuable than silver or gold.
In his afterword, Helgerson gives a thoughtful explanation about what it was like to live in 1849 along the great river town of St. Louis, Missouri. At the very end of the book, immediately after the quote from Thaddeus Pope, “Words are the keys to knowledge,” Helgerson also includes a tongue-in-cheek “Dictionarium Americannicum,” which contains words and their time-appropriate definitions.
Middle-grade students, especially those who enjoy light-hearted adventure stories with historic settings, should have a great time reading CROWS & CARDS. The just-right illustrations by Peter de Seve and the fun-to-read dictionary complement the experience of Joseph Helgerson’s novel.
--- Reviewed by Donna Volkenannt (dvolkenannt@charter.net)
Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.
Back to top.
