SPITFIRE
By Kate Messner
North Country Books, 2007
Category: Middle-grade Historical Fiction
I met Kate Messner at the New England Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators conference in 2006. I was in the conference bookstore (buying books, of course!) and she walked right up and said hello. As I struggled mightily to place her face she let me off the hook, “We’ve never met. But I read your blog.”
The phrase knock me over with a feather floated to mind, and then is she for real? and people read my blog?. We talked, and I came away with a very nice impression of this writer from upstate New York. And I have been reading her blog ever since. Kate’s debut novel, SPITFIRE, was released in September and my own copy arrived a few short weeks ago.
Now, I have to tell you that reading the work of a friend—particularly when that friend is new and someone you have grown to like and respect—is a scary proposition. What if … well, what if? You know what I mean?
But Kate let me off the hook again. SPITFIRE is a great read. My kids and I were drawn into the lives of Abigail and Pascal, twelve-year-olds who took part in a naval battle on Lake Champlain during the Revolutionary War … a battle, by the way, that moved grown men to tears. Kate weaves their points-of-view well, creating a gripping narrative that had us re-thinking history (was the brave Captain Benedict Arnold really a traitor?) and war (did kids really fight in the Revolutionary War?) and gender stereotypes (this from my boys, “did a girl really write this book?”).
Well done, Kate. Well done!