Trapped between the Lash and the Gun [Hardcover]

Arvella Whitmore (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 11 and up

An exciting, deeply heartfelt tale certain to resonate in the minds and emotions of any young person who has felt trapped by hard times and tough choices Jordan Scott has made his decision. To stay in the hood. With the gang. The Cobras can be rough, but since Daddy left, they're the only ones who make him feel like he belongs to something that will help him become a man. And besides, it's not like he'll be trapped in this gang thing forever. But what Jordan can't know is that he'll soon begin a journey across time, a journey to a place where life is lived beneath the lash of the whip. Combining searing scenes of contemporary gang life with the parallel experiences of a nineteenth-century slave plantation, this story stands as an unflinching testimony to all who have waged the struggle to find the ray of light at the tunnel's end.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From its lurid title to its lackluster plotting and prose, this time-slip fantasy of an African-American boy who travels back to the antebellum South to be taught the lessons of slavery firsthand delivers far less than the premise might suggest. In order to become a full-fledged member of the Cobra gang, 12-year-old Jordan must raise the money for a gun. He steals his grandfather's gold watch, which once belonged to the slaveholder who owned one of Jordan's forebears. On his way to the pawnshop, Jordan rushes through an underpass and suddenly finds himself on a Southern plantation. Whitmore (The Bread Winner) touches upon many of the evils of slavery?backbreaking labor, squalid living conditions, physical punishment, auctions, death, even, glancingly, miscegenation?but with the formulaic writing and superficial characterizations, readers are not likely to be moved. The lesson that Jordan takes back to the city?that gangs are the contemporary version of slavery?may be a profound one, but here it seems facile and unconvincing. Ages 11-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8-Determined not to move to an integrated suburb, 12-year-old Jordan Henning Scott plans to run away and live with his newfound gang friends, but the heirloom watch he steals from his grandfather to finance this venture transports him back in time. Finding himself in the old South, Jordan meets Uriah, a slave boy who takes him to the Henning plantation. Jordan is presumed to be a runaway slave, put to exhausting work picking cotton, and whipped when he collapses. After he tries to run away, he is sold to a slave trader and then bought by a sympathizer who gives him freedom papers and promises to send him to Canada if he will return to the Henning plantation and convince Uriah to leave. The master, who turns out to be Uriah's father, had recently brought the boy into the big house and given him his watch for safekeeping. When Jordan finds the watch again, he is returned to his own time. Left behind, Uriah takes the papers and Jordan's name to Canada and becomes Jordan's great-great-great-great-grandfather. Readers who can overlook awkward dialogue and an unlikely plot will be caught up in the boy's efforts to survive and appropriately appalled by the details of daily life. The premise of a modern eye looking at the grim realities of slavery was used more successfully, but for older readers, by Octavia Butler in Kindred (Beacon, 1988); Trapped, however, might intrigue readers looking for quick-moving historical fiction.
Kathleen Isaacs, Edmund Burke School, Washington, DC
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 11 and up
  
• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Dial; 1st edition (January 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803723849
• ISBN-13: 978-0803723849
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,185,072 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good story involving gangs, slavery, and time travel, September 7, 1999

By 

Nelson Jimenez "nelsonzz" (stamford, ct USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Trapped between the Lash and the Gun (Hardcover)

Arvella has written a wonderful novel about a modern day teen trying to cope without his daddy by joining a gang of cobras. With a time travelling watch, he goes back to the days of slavery and lives a rough life. This "slave life" teaches him that being with family and learning are the 2 most positive experiences in life. The characters of Jordan and Uriah are well written. Many teens should read this book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book!, June 12, 2001

By 

Natalie (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trapped between Lash and Gun (Paperback)

Trapped Between the Lash and the Gun was a great book! I really liked the way the author mixed history with the present in a realistic way. There was a lot of excitement in the book, and I could never put it down. I would definitely recommend reading it!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Educational-entertaining-a book you can't put down....., July 4, 2007

By 

Niki L. Snowden (Palm Desert, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Trapped between Lash and Gun (Paperback)

Trapped Between the Lash and the Gun is a story about a young man about to join a gang. As part of the initiation into the gang, this African-American youth has to buy a gun. To get money for this gun, he steals his grandfather's watch - a prized family heirloom which has been passed down through his family since the days of slavery.

As he walks to the pawn shop with the watch in his hand, he is suddenly transported back to the days of slavery in the old South. Not knowing how to survive this brutal time period, not knowing the rules of survival as a slave, he must learn to survive long enough to get back to the present.

I have taught this novel in my eighth grade language arts class for several years. It has been accorded the highest honor as my students ask - "Can we read Trapped Between the Lash and the Gun" again, today?
What a joy to teach a book that students eagerly read and enjoy.

In the process, this book teaches that gang-life and slavery are one and the same. They both operate on the basis of fear and brutality while binding one to a system where there is no escape.