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A review by katykelly
Cane Warriors by Alex Wheatle
5.0
Upsetting but doesn't pull its punches for a YA audience.
A Carnegie shortlister, I try to read them all every year. What a subject. Brutal, but necessarily so. Fast-moving from the initial decision of the slaves to revolt, to the action the reader experiences with the men and boys.
Based on a real-life plantation uprising, the 14-year-old protagonist shows its YA audience what really would have happened, injuries, deaths and all. An education in a hundred or so pages, the truth of what slaves endured and fought against couldn't be clearer.
The decision to kill their 'masters', the overseers is the one Mao struggles with, but once decisions are made and the first actions are taken, we are pushed into the path of the unstoppable train that we can see is going to be a bloody one.
Not making this a full-length novel works well, it keeps the flow and story tight, we know enough of Moa and his brethren to maintain tension and sympathy.
It's a good introduction to the topic, will leave readers with questions. For use only with secondary school students though.
A Carnegie shortlister, I try to read them all every year. What a subject. Brutal, but necessarily so. Fast-moving from the initial decision of the slaves to revolt, to the action the reader experiences with the men and boys.
Based on a real-life plantation uprising, the 14-year-old protagonist shows its YA audience what really would have happened, injuries, deaths and all. An education in a hundred or so pages, the truth of what slaves endured and fought against couldn't be clearer.
The decision to kill their 'masters', the overseers is the one Mao struggles with, but once decisions are made and the first actions are taken, we are pushed into the path of the unstoppable train that we can see is going to be a bloody one.
Not making this a full-length novel works well, it keeps the flow and story tight, we know enough of Moa and his brethren to maintain tension and sympathy.
It's a good introduction to the topic, will leave readers with questions. For use only with secondary school students though.