This is the third book in Jean Van Leeuwen’s Pioneer Daughters series, and it happens to be the book that made me learn about prison ships (Twin wants it noted she wrote her book report on this book the first week of 4th grade). The image of Hannah’s brother Ben always haunted me. Even so, it’s written for a pretty young audience; I want to say I was eight or so when I read it (Twin: we’d just turned 9).
Eleven-year-old Hannah Perley lives in Fairfield Connecticut, and she is struggling through the winter of 1780. After a British raid burned their barn in Book 2 (a historical event that did occur), their family of six lives in a single room. Her best friend is a shopkeeper’s daughter named Betsy, and here’s a hint of childhood crush with Sam Eaton, a boy insistent on being taken on as a clockmaking apprentice.
Then Hannah learns her brother Ben, who is a Continental soldier, has been taken prisoner and confined aboard the prison ship Jersey, which forms the main conflict. There’s not a ton Hannah can do besides pray and hope, so in terms of plot, Hannah is more a bystander. Her lesson is more in terms of the importance of hope that, to quote Sam Eaton, “some day this war will end.”
There’s many really nice, period-accurate details. Hannah’s father actually details the difference between army officers who got parole, and private soldiers like Ben, who would be subject to rough conditions. I don’t think I’ve seen another children’s book cover this.
There’s also this memorable anecdote about the laughable value of Continental dollars:
Their Continental bills were hardly worth anything. Hannah remembered a story Betsy had told her. Her father had hidden a good many dollars between the rafters in the attic. Mice found them and chewed them into a nest. But her father hadn’t been upset. “Let the mice have them,” he said. “And the coins for couches. They are worth more to them than to me.
Although it discusses the grim conditions on prison ships, the story also demonstrates several instances of escape: Ben’s friend Josiah Plummer escapes the Jersey, while Sam Eaton’s brother Thomas escaped the Sugar House a few years back (another building that housed prisoners in New York City).
The story does not ignore slavery; Moses is a brief but memorable character who goes out of his way to show kindness, because, in his words, “Aren’t I a free man?”
Which raises the idea of people being free to show kindness, and those who are not. This point gets driven home in a very poignant moment, when Hannah finds their family goose stolen. The Perleys have been worried about the British soldiers stealing their livestock for a while, as their animals are necessary for food.
However, this mysterious goose-thief leaves a note that reads “Sorry.”
As Hannah and her brother Jemmy fume, their mother softens. She points out that the note likely means the man was very hungry, and did not want to steal. Hannah suddenly realizes:
Even British soldiers must get hungry. And even the British, she supposed, might feel bad about stealing. Some of them might, anyway.
Humanity! On both sides of a war! In a children’s book! We love to see it.
Of course, Hannah then hopes the thief is a Continental, on her own side, as per human nature. But the book never provides a definitive answer, and that’s the sort of ambiguity I deeply appreciate.
Overall, it’s a sweet book that doesn’t have too much of a plot or arc for the main character, but you can tell the author did her research and cares about people first and foremost, and I always love that.
Next week, we’ll post On Holy Ground‘s synopsis.
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