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Summary
Summary
Thirteen-year-old Natalie Minks loves machines, particularly automata--self-operating mechanical devices, usually powered by clockwork. When Jake Limberleg and his traveling medicine show arrive in her small Missouri town with a mysterious vehicle under a tarp and an uncanny ability to make Natalie's half-built automaton move, she feels in her gut that something about this caravan of healers is a bit off. Her uneasiness leads her to investigate the intricate maze of the medicineshow, where she discovers a horrible truth and realizes that only she has the power to set things right.
Set in 1914, The Boneshaker is a gripping, richly textured novel about family, community, courage, and looking evil directly in the face in order to conquer it.
Author Notes
Kate Milford is originally from Annapolis, Maryland. She is the author of The Boneshaker, The Broken Lands, The Kairos Mechanism, Bluecrowne, and Greenglass House, which was long-listed for the National Book Award. She is also a New York Times Best Seller from 2016.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-8-It's 1913 in Arcane, Missouri, and all Natalie Minks has to worry about is learning to ride the Chesterlane Eidolon her father rebuilt for her-a bicycle so unique that it thwarts her every attempt to even stay on it. Natalie loves bicycles and other machines because she understands them. But then Dr. Limberleg's Nostrum Fair and Technological Medicine Show sets up in Arcane with its miraculous cures and automata that seemingly don't have a key to wind and can run forever. Natalie is convinced that there's something sinister behind the miracles and machines at the medicine show, and the strange visions she begins having about the town's history reinforce her fears. With so many of the townspeople using Dr. Limberleg's ginger root cure, it is left to Natalie to discover the truth about the doctor and to save the town. Erin Moon solidly performs Kate Milford's excellent steampunk tale (Clarion Books, 2010) of early 20th century small-town America. Her youthful voice is believable as the spirited and determined Natalie, and she gives unique voices to many of the other well-drawn characters. This rich tale of good versus evil and finding inner strength will stay with listeners long after the climactic showdown.-Amanda Raklovits, Champaign Public Library, IL (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Set in 1913, Milford's debut is a sure-footed, slow-burning thriller. Feisty 13-year-old Natalie has grown up in a small Missouri town located near a mysterious crossroads, listening to the local myths about it that her mother shares. When Dr. Limberleg opens the Nostrum Fair and Technological Medicine Show, the townspeople (afraid of catching the neighboring town's flu) take to his products and team, who promote phrenology, hydrotherapy, magnetism, and amber therapy. Mechanically minded Natalie, however, is determined to get through the smoke and mirrors, and she finds that Dr. Limberleg's cures come with strings attached. "Most people are much older when they discover their world isn't the place they thought it was," he warns. "By then... sometimes... it's too late." The tale is shrouded in mystery and explores themes of gaining confidence and recognizing evil, and Milford's detail-rich prose makes it all the more haunting ("In the gaslight and what morning sun that filtered through the heavy curtains, startling shapes began to resolve themselves into familiar objects. Seeing them clearly didn't make her like them any better"). Final art not seen by PW. Ages 10-up. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Sinister Dr. Jake Limberleg arrives in Arcane, Missouri, in 1913 with strange tonics and stranger machines. Only thirteen-year-old Natalie can stop the evil he plans to unleash upon the town in this unpredictable tale of how a plucky girl comes to look the devil in the eye. Sketchlike pen-and-ink illustrations with captions and a spindly font add to the book's old-timey feel. Copyright 2010 of The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Not to be confused with Cherie Priest's steampunk novel of the same name (though there is just the barest whiff of steampunk here), this historical fantasy uses the classic devil-at-the-crossroads motif as the foundation for an elaborate and intricate gearwork story set in the little town of Arcane, Missouri, in 1913. Milford weaves a lot of strands into this tale. The most prominent involves the town's resident ancient bluesman, who is said to have had a run-in with the devil ages ago, and 13-year-old heroine Natalie, whose latent powers as a sort of seer are awakened when Jake Limberleg's Nostrum Fair and Technological Medicine Show arrives in town. She just knows that there's something more sinister at work than the typical hucksterism of snake-oil salesmen, and the plot soon encompasses everything from the original fall of Lucifer to the Jack tales of classic American folklore. This is not light reading, as readers will have to pay close attention to keep track of the large (but excellently drawn) cast of characters and detailed, but hardly belabored, descriptions of mechanical contraptions, bolstered by an array of fine-lined illustrations that enhance the already vivid and cinematic read. Both impressive and ambitious, Milford's first novel rarely overreaches as it lays out an eerie and atmospheric vision of early-twentieth-century Americana, electrified by supernatural traces and a generously complex look at good, evil, and the wide swath in between.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2010 Booklist
