School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-Brian Doyle, 14, decides he has had enough of his alcoholic, abusive father and leaves San Francisco to sign on to a whaling ship. From the beginning, the voyage appears to be plagued by bad luck: the sailors find very few whales and must journey to the frigid, dangerous seas around Alaska. Brian's journal details the trials of living aboard the Florence, including the clash of personalities, bad weather, an incompetent captain, and the illness and death of some crewmembers. When they enter the Bering Strait and the ice closes around the ship, the sailors must abandon the vessel and split up with the lifeboats. When Brian's group reaches land, he sets off on his own to look for a settlement and brings back help to rescue the rest of the men. Murphy does a good job of combining a gripping adventure with Brian's coming-of-age experience and plenty of meaty details about shipboard life and whaling in the 1870s. A small selection of photos is included, and a historical note provides interesting information about the whaling industry.-Shelley B. Sutherland, Niles Public Library District, IL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
A fourteen-year-old runaway from San Francisco records his experiences in 1874 on the ship The Florence. Brian describes life at sea and presents a vividly detailed account of whaling as the ship sails the Pacific, stops in Hawaii, and is eventually abandoned in the icy waters of Alaska. An informational note and some archival images put this fictional account into historical perspective. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
