Trapped Between the Lash and the Gun

by Arvella Whitmore

Overview

Jordan is going to join a gang. But just as he's about to start his future with the Cobras, his past calls him back. Way back—to the nineteenth-century, where he meets his ancestors and gets a bitter taste of what life was like for them as slaves. Jordan must live with the constant threat of the whip's lash. His journey back in time will strike a chord with any young person who has felt trapped by hard times and difficult choices.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780141303192
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	01/29/2001
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.07(w) x 7.69(h) x 0.51(d)
Lexile:	690L (what's this?)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Arvella Whitmore's children's novels include The Bread Winner, an NCSS-CBC Notable Children's Book in the Field of Social Studies. She and her husband reside in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Editorial Reviews

"A fast-paced tale. Kids will find Jordan's reactions to his suddenly subhuman status affecting and believable." —USA Today

From the Publisher

A fast-paced tale. Kids will find Jordan's reactions to his suddenly subhuman statusaffecting and believable.

USA Today

Whitmore (The Bread Winner, 1990) writes about a modern child who is uninterested in the suffering of his ancestors until he is forced to live it. Jordan, told to bring money to the gang he has just joined, steals his grandfather's pocket watch, which transports him back in time to the days of slavery. He is put to work as a slave on the plantation where his ancestor, Uriah, is a boy. Determined to find the watch - the key to his return - Jordan works in the cotton fields, is whipped, gets sold, and joins the Underground Railroad before finding his way back to his own time, where the gang waits to make an example of him for trying to get out. This is an exciting read; Whitmore packs in as much information about slavery as possible, which only occasionally interferes with the flow of the story. Jordan's awakening to his heritage and to the consequences of his actions in the present are well done and, in the context of the story, believable. (Fiction. 11-13) .

Kirkus Reviews