Last Dance on Holladay Street (Hardcover)

by Elisa Carbone (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up–The only world that 13-year-old Eva Wilkins has ever known is her quiet life on the Colorado prairie with Daddy Walter and Mama Kate. But now that they have both died, her only option is to go live with the mother who gave her up at birth. She makes her first trip to Denver all alone and is wide-eyed with astonishment at all the people and buildings. But she is more shocked when she learns that her mother is a prostitute in a well-to-do brothel on notorious Holladay Street, and, even more, that her mother's skin is white, while Eva's is coffee-colored. After she is put to work dancing with the customers for a quarter each, she knows that she has to escape Holladay Street before she is forced to "work upstairs." Carbone's novel portrays the harsh realities of the options for single women in the late-Victorian era in the United States without graphic sexual references. The desperation and anguish these women feel are well wrought and palpable as they are largely portrayed as victims of circumstance. The only element that seems to be missing is the establishment of the racial climate for a young girl who is half black and half white. And yet this book works well on two levels: it is a good historical picture of life in the city and the country of the late 1800s, and it is also a triumph of the female spirit over the oppressive choices women sometimes face.–Anna M. Nelson, Collier County Public Library, Naples, FL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Library Binding edition.

From Booklist
Gr. 8-11. After the death of her loving, black foster parents in 1878, Eva, 13, makes her way to Denver, Colorado, in search of her birth mother, who turns out to be a white prostitute working in a brothel. For a time Eva shares a room with her half-sister in the whorehouse, where they earn their keep by dancing with the town's miners, carpenters, and cowhands. After Eva is told to work "upstairs," she runs away. On her journey, she encounters extraordinary kindness and danger (she even fights off a mountain lion by sticking her fingers in its eyes), but more than the perilous adventure, what drives the story is the authentic view of women in the old west. There's no detail about the sex in the brothel, just a strong sense of community among the desperate workers, and the triumph of a brave young woman who escapes to find real work and a home. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers; First Edition edition (March 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375828966
• ISBN-13: 978-0375828966
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,329,386 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Carbone's Western, July 26, 2005

By	christina anker "christina anker" (Grand Rapids, Mi USA) - See all my reviews

There are hordes of novels written about the Wild West. But amid the thousands of dime novels and nature-romance tales, very few have been written about adolescents, and even fewer have been written about FEMALE adolescents. Carbone's novel is one of a kind, narrating the story of 13-year-old Eva Wilkins.

In this novel, one can find the realism missing from the almost fantastic tradition of Western fiction. Carbone's novel is full of harsh realities. The heroine Eva takes them blow by blow. When her adoptive parents die on the farm, she is suddenly alone, and must fend for her in Denver where she is preyed on by the prostitution system and later preyed on by a mountain lion. Surely, life in the West is a struggle for the freedom and audacity.


Although this book tells of reality of the West, it does not loose the epic, tall-tale quality that makes Westerns so alluring. Eva never ceases to be amazed by her surroundings and stumbles form one adventure to another. Although life is hard for the mixed-raced female Eva, like all heroines, beats the system, never loosing focus.

Certainly, in THE LAST DANCE ON HOLLADAY STREET, Carbone combines historical realism with Western adventure to present a new look at the West that all adolescents are sure to enjoy.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eva Is Awesome! So is Elisa!, September 7, 2005

By	Good Brother Cadfael (Virginia) - See all my reviews

I'd recently read Elisa Carbone's wonderful _Storm Warriors_, set on North Carolina's Outer Banks, and found _Last Dance_ at the library. It's just as meticulously researched and carefully crafted as _Storm Warriors_, not to mention just as much of a good read.

Even though I'm a 44-year-old woman, I found myself admiring 13-year-old Eva and thinking what a good mentor she is. To say she doesn't have an easy time of things is an understatement. But Eva is wise on many levels and she grows wiser by the end of this book. She not only helps herself, but she also brings others up along with her. She will be an inspiration to young readers.

Carbone's book is set in the Wild West, and deals with some harsh truths. But parents and/or librarians shouldn't be put off by this: the material is handled extremely sensitively. There is no attempt to capitalize on violence or salaciousness. The brothel setting, instead of being titillating, encourages the reader to consider why these women had ended up in such a situation, either through their own choice or through lack of choice. Does Eva want this sort of life for herself? Does she want to see her mother or half-sister continue in such a condition?

Marcus Aurelius, one of my favourite philosophers, said you needed to look things in the face and know them for what they are. That's what this book does, and it does it in an historically accurate and inspiring way.