FEATURED AUTHOR - Emily Renk Hawthorne was born and raised in Southern California. Her mother and father are from Taiwan and Illinois, respectively. Emily’s always had a special love for fantasy and sci-fi books.In elementary school, Emily wrote a story about a lonely fish that joined a school of fish for companionship and safety in numbers. The story was selected by a traveling performance group and performed at an assembly in front of her school. From then on, Emily was hooked! (Pun intended!)
Recent comments: User reviews
While Henty has some scenes of a slave owner beating a slave and Ned helps one slave escape to England, he also speaks up in favour of the institution, pointing out that most slaves are "happy" and depicts a picture of the Unionists as the evil rabble rousers.
It has the typical Henty fomula of a uber-competent English boy who joins the army, gets captured, escapes, etc.
typical Henty, the Protestant Dutch (supported by the English ) are all good and the catholic Spaniards are all evil.
ust replace Spaniards for any other opponent of the english and you have the template for every henty book. As always you learn ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about the cultures he writes about. how can anyone spill so much ink and include no local colour?
Don't bother with this. Instead read the Geoffery Trease book "Follow my Black Plume" which deals with the same topic but in a brilliant way. (Trease wrote specifically to counter Henty's overly jingoistic style)
I read this one in concert with "Wulf the Saxon" and this one is better. Probably because A. the Britons are not his golden-boy (Aryan) Saxons and B. he has a healthy respect for the Romans, so they arent the cartoonish bad guys that the Welsh and Normans were in "Wulf".
I'd recommend it, but remember its Henty so be prepared for lots of talk and descriptions of nothing and little plot. As always, you don't really LEARN anything.