Joe Wood has dreams. Big dreams. He wants to be a newspaperman, and
though he's only fourteen, he's already borrowed money to start his own
press. But it's April, 1861, and a young nation is teetering on the
brink of a civil war.As effects of war begin to spread over Joe's
hometown of Wiscasset, Maine, he must juggle his personal ambitions with
some new responsibilities. 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 she can
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
tension it brings, forcing them into adulthood--before they may be
ready.