Black Duck [Mass Market Paperback]

Janet Taylor Lisle (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up

It is spring 1929, and Prohibition is in full swing. So when Ruben and Jeddy find a dead body washed up on the shore of their small coastal Rhode Island town, they are sure it has something to do with smuggling liquor. Soon the boys, along with Jeddy’s strongwilled sister, Marina, are drawn in, suspected by rival bootlegging gangs of taking something crucial off the dead man. Then Ruben meets the daring captain of the Black Duck, the most elusive smuggling craft of them all, and it isn’t long before he’s caught in a war between two of the most dangerous prohibition gangs.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Grade 7-10 A teen's determination to be published in the local paper leads him to Ruben Hart's front door and an unlikely friendship. The elderly man has a mysterious past, and David soon becomes wrapped up in his tale of how he played an integral part in the adventures surrounding the legendary rum-running ship called the Black Duck. In 1929, in Newport, RI, Ruben and his friend Jeddy, 14, found a body on the beach. By the time they convinced the authorities to check it out, the dead man had disappeared, and soon both the New York and Boston mobs were after Ruben. The author explores the subject of Prohibition as well as various underlying social themes. She shows the difficulty of staying honest when everyone else is breaking the law and when local authorities all seem to be in on the action. Another issue involves the Coast Guard's shooting of three men believed to be rumrunners, and whether the murders were justified. Readers will be inspired by both Ruben's and David's will to succeed when faced with an overwhelming challenge and how they stand by their convictions in doing so. The decade-alternating chapters may be a bit challenging for reluctant readers, but the riveting mystery and nonstop adventure will provide enough incentive for older readers. Kimberly Monaghan, formerly at Vernon Area Public Library, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Gr. 7-10. David, a 14-year-old aspiring journalist, suspects that his elderly neighbor, Ruben, has a story to tell about Prohibition in their Rhode Island town, and he wonders "how to pry it out of the geezer." Surprisingly, Ruben opens up, and his chapter-length recollections of "rumrunners and highjackers, fast boats and dark nights," form the bulk of this gripping, layered mystery, which begins with young Ruben's discovery of a dead body. Questions about the corpse's identity draw Ruben into a dangerous local smuggling war. Transitions between then and now are sometimes jarring, and David is more narrative device than defined character: he poses the questions that the reader wants answered. Still, the setting's cinematic detail brings the exhilarating action close, and readers will easily see themselves in young Ruben, whose boiling frustration with family and convention lead him deeper into adventure. The ethical questions will also fascinate teens: Were the locals less guilty than the big-city crime bosses? How do you piece together a story when "there's no way of getting back there for a clear view"? Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Puffin (September 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0142409022
• ISBN-13: 978-0142409022
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #465,110 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Make way for Black Duck(lings), July 12, 2006

By 

E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black Duck (Hardcover)

How do you resist the siren call of a book when your co-workers (who are ALL children's librarians) are singing its praises yea unto the highest of heavens? Ah, "Black Duck". Winner of this year's least-enticing-cover award (at least from a child reader viewpoint), it's proof positive that Janet Taylor Lisle is back, baby! And the subject of her latest fascination? Rumrunners. By and large, I avoid historical fiction like it was the plague itself. But there's only so long that your average joe (average joe = me) can ignore a whole host of children's literature specialists who think a particular item is heaven on earth. And so I read "Black Duck" and found a rather nice book. I don't think I'm quite as taken with it as some folks out there, but I think I can safely say that when it comes to Prohibition Era children's books, Lisle's latest effort has more subtlety and sheer intelligence than pretty much any other title covering the same subject. You want your kids to be mindlessly amused? Give `em something light n' fluffy. You want them to be challenged and possibly haunted by the world's shifting morality? Black Duck `em.

David's almost a freshman in high school, but he's already figured out what he wants to do with his life. He wants to be a reporter. That means finding something to report on, and in a town like Newport there's not much for a kid to find. That is, until David uncovers an old time rumrunner by the name of Ruben Hart. At first, Hart is reluctant to divulge what he knows about the past. Yes, he heard of the infamous rumrunning vessel The Black Duck that was gunned down by a Coast Guard cutter. Beyond that, he won't say anything ... at first. As David and Ruben get to know one another better, however, the elder of the two begins to tell his tale. It's a story of living in a time of constant corruption and thievery. As a kid, Ruben and his best friend Jeddy were inseparable. Then they found a dead body on the beach and everything changed. With infinite skill, Lisle teases out a story the concerns itself with how one does what is "right" when "right" is no longer as clear as it once was.

One of the things I liked most about Lisle's writing was how she could take a small, almost incidental character like David, and with a minimum of words suddenly conjure up an entire backstory. Lisle has a talent for knowing exactly what words to use when. It doesn't hurt matters any that Lisle's language takes the cake. Sentences like, "It was the sort of spring night that makes you want to leap like a wild animal", or, "It must be a law of nature, David thinks, that when folks get old, everything around them ages too". Add in the factual information that's peppered throughout this narrative and you've got yourself one heckuva good book. Kids will read this thing and find themselves learning fact after fact without even realizing it. Lisle even includes an Author's Note with additional information on the real Black Duck and its fate. A Bibliography wouldn't have hurt any, but since this is fiction anyway I wouldn't insist upon it.

The focus of this book, its core, is based on the choices its characters make. I've never seen such an effective morality play for kids, to tell you the truth. Jeddy's father is the town's police chief, so his son sees the world as simply as possible. If you commit a crime you go to jail. End of story. As the book says, "Fog wasn't something Jeddy could deal with". For Ruben, it's far more difficult. To keep his job, his father is forced to assist in rumrunning. And then, of course, there are different kinds of rumrunners. There are the big mafia types from New York and Boston, and then there are the local boys like The Black Duck, who have the town's heart. How do you decide what is right and what is wrong when everybody is ignoring the rules? What does that do to you if you're a kid looking on?

I should point out that this is not a book for reluctant readers, by any means. The book begins slowly. So slowly, in fact, that I found myself having to push myself forward for about three or four chapters. Once you break that initial barrier, though, it gets easier. "Black Duck" may find itself a difficult sell to the child population. It's up to librarians to booktalk it beautifully and parents to encourage their kiddies with it. Tell `em it's about the criminal underworld, illegal hootch, and involves the hero getting kidnapped, shot at, and who pickpockets the dead. That'll get `em! It's definitely a worthwhile read and smart as a whip. It's not for everyone. Just the ones lucky enough to appreciate it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Than I Hoped For, April 6, 2008

By 

Nada Brown - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black Duck (Mass Market Paperback)

A year ago three of my sixth graders wanted to read Black Duck, a new book in our school library, for Literature Circles. That was my first experience with the book. I started reading on my way home to Illinois and couldn't stop. Likewise, my sixth graders had a lot of praise for the mystery set in the Prohibition Era. If you parents or teachers are looking for a book that will motivate even the most unwilling reader, this is it. One of the boys confided that although he is a jock, he had to confess he couldn't stop reading it. At first some of the girls were resistant, but soon they, too, had to admit they were hooked. Telling the story in an interview is a unique format. This book also lends itself to a variety of research topics the students enjoyed: Prohibition, the Great Depression, the Roaring 20s, Women's Suffrage, politics, gangs, gansters, Rhode Island, the East Coast, and of course bootlegging and smuggling. What a great way to learn some history! I highly recommend it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful Storytelling, October 25, 2008

By 

Jeremy McGuire "Author of 'O'Shaughnessey: ... (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Duck (Mass Market Paperback)

Ten years after the enactment of the Prohibition law, there occurred in the Narragansett Bay an incident that contributed to its repeal. The attack by a Coast Guard cutter of a legendary rum-running fishing boat called the Black Duck, which killed most of its crew. No one knows the details of that attack, but Janet Taylor Lisle draws upon the legend to present a gripping and plausible speculation.
The story is told in the present day to a young student journalist by an old man who was himself a boy when the events took place in the Summer of 1929, and who was intimately involved with the event. It is a story of betrayal, broken friendships, dangerous loyalties and ethical dilemmas. As one of the characters, the beautiful and adventurous daughter of the Chief of Police, says, "Sometimes I stop and wonder what's right ... And there isn't any answer, so I just go along. I guess, in the end, if you have to make a choice, you do what's best for the people you love." There is a moral ambiguity to the story that sets it apart from much of the literature of the genre and is, perhaps, one of its greatest strengths.
Yes, the Black Duck's crew was breaking the law, but on the North coasts bordering Canada, from Minnesota to Rhode Island, it was an accepted and often lauded activity. Most everybody in the small border towns profited from it and the police mostly looked the other way.
The old man, Reuben Hart who, as a boy, found a dead body washed up on the shore where he was looking for lobster pots with his best friend Jeddy.
The discovery of the well dressed body signaled a sea-change in the business of smuggling liquor, the arrival of the big gangs from Boston and New York and the end of the trade as a purely local enterprise. The inhabitants of the town were to be squeezed between the two rival mobs and the Coast Guard.
Sailing blithely between these forces was the Black Duck which, having been fitted with two World War One aircraft engines, escaped all dangers until that last fateful night when it met its doom.
The award winning author crafts a thrilling mystery that also deals with some important ethical issues in an historical context that is vividly and accurately presented. The characters are well developed and distinct and the action, told as two stories, one in the present and one in the 1920's, is compelling. The writing is vivid and compact. Taylor is a master of suspense. We know from the start what happened to the Black Duck; the mystery we unravel is how it happened and who was responsible.
Highly recommended.