- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: Tundra Books; 1 edition (Feb 9 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0887769837
- ISBN-13: 978-0887769832
- Product Dimensions: 14.2 x 2.1 x 20.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 340 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #351,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Quill & Quire
In her second children’s novel, Ann Towell of Shetland, Ontario, employs a little-known historical event as the foundation for a solid coming of age story featuring complex characters and a nuanced exploration of race and class issues.
In 1863, the tiny town of Oil Springs (near present-day Sarnia) is little more than a swamp, but one that teems with black gold. As a result, it’s booming with hordes of men seeking fortune. It is also home to many former slaves who came to Canada via the Underground Railroad. And there is one boy in town who’s not supposed to be there at all.
Twelve-year-old Titus Sullivan stows away in the back of his older brother’s wagon to escape the strictures of his tyrannical Aunt Sadie. Titus, who is white, befriends Moses, a black boy his own age, and the twosome start a business providing tours of the local oil operations to curious city folk. As time goes on, Moses and his kin become less welcome – they are accused of stealing jobs from whites because of the lower wages they have no choice but to accept. When the town erupts in a race riot, Titus has to make a choice.
Grease Town’s skilful first-person narration lends the novel an authentic tone. The book is rich with action and conflict, and Towell satisfyingly draws out tensions between the raw machismo of the mostly male populace of Oil Springs and the civilizing influences of both Aunt Sadie and Mrs. Ryan, a teacher who instills in Titus a love of reading that he passes on to Merry, a spunky servant girl.
Despite the novel’s thematic focus on racial injustice, Towell resists the urge to provide the reader with unsubtle life lessons. And although there are some clear heroes and villains, the book’s secondary characters, and Titus’s perceptions of them, are often more complicated. His enormous, bearded Uncle Amos is not ashamed to cry, for instance. More rewarding still is Titus’s begrudging appreciation of his Aunt Sadie’s passion and her protective love, even though she doesn’t approve of him befriending a black boy or fraternizing with Merry. In Grease Town, as in life, human relationships are far from simple.
Book Description
A heartbreaking history of prejudice, family ties, and the loss of innocence.When twelve-year-old Titus Sullivan decides to run away to join his Uncle Amos and older brother, Lem, he finds an alien and exciting world in Oil Springs, the first Canadian oil boomtown of the 19th century.
The Enniskillen swamp is slick with oil, and it takes enterprising folk to plumb its depths. The adventurers who work there are a tough lot of individuals. In this hard world, Titus becomes friends with a young black boy, the child of slaves who came to Canada on the Underground Railroad. When tragedy strikes in the form of a race riot, Titus's loyalties are tested as he struggles to deal with the terrible fallout.
Though the characters are fictitious, the novel is based on a race riot that occurred in Oil Springs, Ontario, on March 20, 1863. Grease Town is historical fiction at its finest.
The Enniskillen swamp is slick with oil, and it takes enterprising folk to plumb its depths. The adventurers who work there are a tough lot of individuals. In this hard world, Titus becomes friends with a young black boy, the child of slaves who came to Canada on the Underground Railroad. When tragedy strikes in the form of a race riot, Titus's loyalties are tested as he struggles to deal with the terrible fallout.
Though the characters are fictitious, the novel is based on a race riot that occurred in Oil Springs, Ontario, on March 20, 1863. Grease Town is historical fiction at its finest.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Interesting Piece of Canadian History,
By
This review is from: Grease Town (Hardcover)
Reason for Reading: I'll pretty much read any juvenile/YA Canadian historical fiction on topics which are new or interesting to me.Summary: Loosely based on a true incident in the Sarnia area of Ontario, Canada, this book tells the story of an oil boom town, the people who fled there and focuses on the friendship between a white boy and a black boy. The book's main historical event is a race riot which left the blacks homeless and very little actual information survives of it today. Comments: I really enjoyed this book aimed at pre-teen children set during the 1860s. The descriptions of an oil boom town and both the shady and eccentric characters it attracted are wonderfully described. The atmosphere is not unlike that of the Goldrush towns. What makes Oil Springs different is that it is populated by both whites and escaped American black slaves. The author shows how the practice of the times, paying the blacks less money than the whites, became easy fodder for insurgents to come in and stir up dangerous feelings with the less desirable characters in town. While not only describing the horrifying results of a senseless race riot the author also shows how easy it is for someone determined enough, in this case a pair of American bounty hunters, to create a mob mentality and control it by preying on their insecurities. Very insightful and at a level that the targeted audience will understand. The narrative voice is very intriguing and works very well, also. At first the narrative seems to cross over the line and speak directly to the reader, which is a little unsettling but then the reader realizes that the narrator is not speaking to them. The narrator is speaking to someone else, whom he eventually starts calling sir and we realize that what we are reading is a written account of the main character's experience in Oil Springs, perhaps a journal or a letter or something else but written directly to someone. Finding out in the end the purpose of this written narrative makes for a great realization. An enjoyable book which I will definitely be passing on to my 9yo for his bedtime reading.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews) 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting piece of Canadian History,
By Nicola Manning - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Grease Town (Hardcover)
Reason for Reading: I'll pretty much read any juvenile/YA Canadian historical fiction on topics which are new or interesting to me.Summary: Loosely based on a true incident in the Sarnia area of Ontario, Canada, this book tells the story of an oil boom town, the people who fled there and focuses on the friendship between a white boy and a black boy. The book's main historical event is a race riot which left the blacks homeless and very little actual information survives of it today. Comments: I really enjoyed this book aimed at pre-teen children set during the 1860s. The descriptions of an oil boom town and both the shady and eccentric characters it attracted are wonderfully described. The atmosphere is not unlike that of the Goldrush towns. What makes Oil Springs different is that it is populated by both whites and escaped American black slaves. The author shows how the practice of the times, paying the blacks less money than the whites, became easy fodder for insurgents to come in and stir up dangerous feelings with the less desirable characters in town. While not only describing the horrifying results of a senseless race riot the author also shows how easy it is for someone determined enough, in this case a pair of American bounty hunters, to create a mob mentality and control it by preying on their insecurities. Very insightful and at a level that the targeted audience will understand. The narrative voice is very intriguing and works very well, also. At first the narrative seems to cross over the line and speak directly to the reader, which is a little unsettling but then the reader realizes that the narrator is not speaking to them. The narrator is speaking to someone else, whom he eventually starts calling sir and we realize that what we are reading is a written account of the main character's experience in Oil Springs, perhaps a journal or a letter or something else but written directly to someone. Finding out in the end the purpose of this written narrative makes for a great realization. An enjoyable book which I will definitely be passing on to my 9yo for his bedtime reading.
4.0 out of 5 stars
interesting coming-of-age novel about Canadian history,
By M. Tanenbaum - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Grease Town (Hardcover)
Curious about what happened to the slaves who ran away to seek freedom in Canada? Unfortunately, not everything went smoothly for all the runaways who made it to Canada. In this historical fiction novel for young people, author Ann Towell spins a tale based on a real race riot that took place in 1863.The story is narrated by Titus, a 12-year old boy who stows away in his older brother's wagon to the Canadian oil fields in Oil Springs, Ontario, around the time of the Civil War. Titus has been living with his Aunt Sadie and her husband, and he's had just about enough of his aunt's nagging. When his brother Lemuel plans to leave to go to his Uncle Amos' house at the oil fields, Titus figures it's time for him to have some adventures rather than go to school. On the road to the oil fields, they meet up with a stranger, John, whom Titus figures is bad news. "There didn't seem much about him that was honest and true," Titus tells the reader. With the cover image of a young black boy, I was convinced at first that the narrator, Titus, was black himself. It took me quite a few pages to figure out that the character we see on the cover is in fact not the narrator, Titus, but rather Moses, a young black boy that Titus befriends when he arrives at Oil Springs. Moses is the first Negro Titus has ever seen, and he describes his face as a "dark color like the beautiful walnut sideboard Aunt Sadie had in the dining room." Moses and Titus even start a business together, giving tours of the oil fields to curious folk from the cities. But the former slaves didn't leave all their troubles behind--some of the oilmen are trying to wreak havoc about the black people working on the oil wells, stirring up trouble by telling people that the blacks are taking jobs away from them by working for less pay. When their tactics don't work, they stoop even lower to rile up the crowds and drive the blacks out of town. Titus winds up an eyewitness to the violence. Can Titus save his friend Moses and his family and help bring the troublemakers to justice? We learn so little in school about our neighbors to the north that I am always glad to discover a historical novel that explores Canadian history, particularly as it intersects with our own past. Clearly racism didn't end at the Canadian border, despite the lack of a history of slavery in Canada. This novel offers an interesting perspective on the Civil War period from the other side of the border, and it's also a moving coming-of-age story about a young man who's forced to confront his fears in order to pursue what's right.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Super YA Story,
By Tara - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Grease Town (Hardcover)
This is a novel aimed at the adolesent bracket, but my thirty year old self thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a touching story with a moral.Thru the eyes of a twelve year old boy, Titus, readers see what life was like in a booming oil town in colonial Canada. During this time, America is engaged in the civil war and runaway slaves are running to Canada where they can be free... supposedly. Titus has his everyday twelve year old problems such as being small and somewhat sickly, dealing with girls, worrying about his snobby Aunt Sadie taking him away from his beloved Uncle Amos, and going to school. But Titus's biggest problem of all is watching his friend Moses, the son of a former slave, be mistreated simply because of his skin color. As Titus starts to learn about hypocrisy and hate, the town's trouble makers target the "shanty town" of former slaves, aiming to run them out of town or worse. Can Titus get to his friend Moses in time? Can he save his friend? Just how much can one twelve year old boy do? A great read, not all completely serious either. Occasionally, Titus injects humor into his narrative regarding girls or his Aunt Sadie, getting quite a few chuckles from me. If I had children, I would be pressing this into their hands. |
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