Joe Wood has big dreams. He wants to be a newspaperman, and though he's
only thirteen, he's already borrowed money for the equipment to start
his own press. But it's April 1861, and the young nation is teetering on
the brink of a civil war. He has to help Owen, his young assistant, deal
with the challenges of being black in a white world torn apart by color.
He needs to talk his best friend, Charlie, out of enlisting. He wants to
help a young spiritualist, Nell, whose uncle claims can she speak to the
dead. And when Owen disappears, it's up to Joe to save him. Lea Wait
skillfully draws on the lives of real people in Maine's history to tell
this story of three young adults touched by war and the tensions it
brings, forcing them into adulthood before they may be ready.