Samson and the Charleston Spy: A Lowcountry Adventure
After 11-year-old Samson witnesses the attack on Fort Sumter that ignites the American Civil War, his friend Mary Lee convinces him that a spy must have forewarned the Yankees, since despite severe damage to the fortress, there were no fatalities among the troops. Joined by their friends Sidney (white, like Samson and Mary Lee) and Jeremiah (the Black son of a freedman), they set out to find the truth. Through investigation, deduction, and luck they uncover the spy, with exciting action scenes enlivening the narrative.
Some stylistic inconsistencies are jarring. The narration, while mostly in standard formal English, contains seemingly random colloquialisms (“hisself,” “He would a gone back to … sleep ‘cept that he figured it was about time to get up”). Shifts in point of view, sometimes showing the action from the vantage point of an adult character, also interrupt the flow.
Samson is brave and intelligent, with a strong sense of duty. Yet in some ways his character doesn’t ring true. He and his co-investigators are strangely ignorant about each other’s lives—the long-time friends don’t know that Mary Lee is Catholic (in a culture very much focused on churchgoing) and that Sidney’s mother is dead. More problematic is that while Samson occasionally appears uneasy at the idea of slavery, he takes comfort that enslaved people are treated “like family” and seem to be happy, and that the woman who helped raise him “doesn’t think of herself as a slave.” A few times he starts discussing his concerns with his friends and his father, but quickly drops the subject. He is otherwise portrayed as a caring person, and it would have added depth to his character if he had challenged those justifications for enslavement rather than merely being made to feel uncomfortable by them. Middle grade.
