Bound To Stay Bound

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 Searching for Silverheels
 Author: Mobley, Jeannie

 Publisher:  Margaret K. McElderry Books (2014)

 Classification: Fiction
 Physical Description: 282 p.,  21 cm.

 BTSB No: 650526 ISBN: 9781481400299
 Ages: 10-14 Grades: 5-9

 Subjects:
 Gender role -- Fiction
 World War, 1914-1918 -- United States -- Fiction
 Colorado -- History -- 1876-1950 -- Fiction

Price: $6.50

Summary:
In Colorado during World War I, a young, romantically minded girl and an old, bitter woman suffragist debate a local legend and examine the role of women in a time of war and prejudice.

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Accelerated Reader Information:
   Interest Level: MG
   Reading Level: 5.40
   Points: 11.0   Quiz: 174385
Reading Counts Information:
   Interest Level: 6-8
   Reading Level: 5.30
   Points: 17.0   Quiz: 63418

Reviews:
   Kirkus Reviews (07/01/14)
   School Library Journal (07/01/14)
   Booklist (10/01/14)

Full Text Reviews:

Booklist - 10/01/2014 In a small Colorado town in 1917, 13-year-old Pearl works in her mother’s café and introduces tourists to the legend of Silverheels, a dancer who arrived in a nearby mining town in 1860 and stayed to nurse the sick during a smallpox epidemic. Naive and romantic, Pearl is irritated by Josie, an older local woman who campaigns for women’s rights. But after Josie challenges Pearl to discover the truth about Silverheels, both experience life-changing realizations. Pearl’s engaging first-person narrative intertwines multiple threads, such as women’s rights in the early twentieth century, discrimination against German Americans during WWI, the importance of community support for individuals in distress, and the displacement of Pearl’s first crush by a more honest affection. While the story highlights several societal issues of the era, Pearl’s narrative includes them not as abstract ideas but as specific events rocking her small but gradually broadening world. From the author of Katerina’s Wish (2012), here’s another historical novel with a distinctive voice and an unusual setting. - Copyright 2014 Booklist.

School Library Journal - 07/01/2014 Gr 6 Up—Pearl Barnell and her small town of Como, Colorado are in for a change. The shift begins when Josie, a local suffragette, challenges the legend of Silverheels that Pearl shares with some tourists who enter her family's café. Readers follow Pearl in her quest to learn the truth about the dancer nicknamed Silverheels, and they see her shed her complacence for a determination to do right, no matter the cost. Mobley uses the microcosm of Como to echo the broader issues of the day—women's suffrage, the Great War, prejudice, and class divisions—yet she doesn't overwhelm readers or the town with these themes. Humorous occasions, particularly a camping trip to see the ghost of Silverheels and some of Pearl's interactions with Josie, temper the more serious elements. A few flat characters, like the matronly Mrs. Crawford, Pearl's friend Imogene, and Pearl's well-grounded mother, seem mere foils for the protagonist. Between the search for the real Silverheels, Pearl's transformation and romantic decisions, and the tension between Josie and the townspeople, there is enough to keep readers interested in the story.—Hilary Writt, Sullivan University, Lexington, KY - Copyright 2014 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

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