Clem's Chances

Rating:
Summary: Great characters, good writing, BUT
Review: As much as I enjoyed reading this book, I was troubled by the way Sonia Levitin presented the Native Americans in this children's novel about a likeable young man traveling to California in 1860. Though the author was very careful to provide balance about the Mormon pioneers and the black slavery issue, very little ink is given to the plight of the Indians. My concern is that young readers might be left with the brutal imagery voiced by a group of bullwhackers in a campfire scene about the fate of the Oatman family. Further atrocities are detailed, such as scalping, smashing the brains of infants and vivisecting pregnant women. Later, there is a scene in which white "gentlemen of means" shoot into a group of sitting Indian women for sport, killing a mother and her baby. Perhaps this counteracts the three pages of discussion about the savage nature of the Natives, but I was left feeling that Levitin could have either excluded some of the gory details or have given a little more information to provide balance on the side of the oppression of the Indians.

Rating:
Summary: CLEM'S CHANCES is packed with information.
Review: CLEM'S CHANCES tells the story of Clem Fontayne, a fourteen-year-old boy in 1860, just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. Sonia Levitin is an expert at writing historical novels for young people, so it is no surprise that she is able to convey so much information in just under 200 pages.

Clem's father left the family a year earlier to seek his fortune in the California gold fields, and hasn't been heard from since. Clem is then left entirely alone when his mother and baby sister die during a fever epidemic. After his mother's death, Clem tries to carry on, until neighbors, the Warrens, find him starving and struggling to stay alive. They take Clem in as a "good deed", but life with them is no picnic. They treat Clem little better than a slave.

But life with the Warrens doesn't last long. After being accused of a crime he didn't commit, Clem is forced to leave the Warrens home. Confused as to where to go or what to do, Clem decides to try and find his father (if his father is even still alive). He heads West --- penniless and desperate --- and finally finds work in a livery stable, earning room and board at a local saloon. But like the Warrens, Clem gets caught up in trouble and he must escape the area to save his life.

Once again penniless and wandering, Clem applies for a job riding for the Pony Express. Instead of being hired to ride, he is offered a job as an animal tender driving the animals to a new station. Working with the Pony Express is just the start of Clem's practical education as he travels across the country to California. Along the way, he learns about politics, and meets many different types of people including an African American cowboy and a group of Mormons traveling to Salt Lake City. Eventually, he makes it to California --- but after all that's happened, what are Clem's Chances of ever seeing his father?

CLEM'S CHANCES is packed with information. However good Levitin is at history, though, she is best when she is describing the interpersonal relations between Clem and the people he meets. CLEM'S CHANCES is a moving and engrossing story of a boy's search for himself.

--- (...)

Rating:
Summary: I couldn't wait for it to be over.
Review: Nothing much exciting happened in this book. It was about a boy who goes to find his father after his mother and sister die. If you ask me, it was too easy for him to find his father, and Clem's father was too succesful in the end. I don't reccomend it.