Children's Review: Iron Thunder



Avi's (Crispin at the Edge of the World) tale of the first conflict between two iron-clad ships, which helped decide the fate of the Civil War, is as immediate as they come. Even the most reluctant reader will be swept up in the events as related by 13-year-old Tom Carroll. As the story opens in a cold January 1862 in Brooklyn, N.Y., Tom's family is still reeling from the news of his father's death while serving in Brooklyn's Fourteenth Regiment. Both Tom's mother and his 17-year-old sister take in officers' washing for $2 per week each, but without his father's salary they are struggling. That's how Tom winds up in Rowland's Continental Iron Works in Greenpoint, "bolting Ericsson's floating battery together." Through Tom's eyes and his curiosity, readers learn how the Monitor, nicknamed "Iron Thunder," gets built, from its hull, which rises only 18" above the water's surface, to the innovative moving turret that allows the gunmen to shift among targets. They have 100 days to finish her, as they race against the Rebels who are building a "sea monster," also coated in iron, officially called the Virginia, but widely known by its earlier name, the Merrimac. If the skepticism does not raise the stakes enough (onlookers call the Monitor an "iron coffin," and indeed she weighs 120 tons without her guns), a Rebel spy stalks Tom throughout the book, attempting to find out the ship's secrets. Tom introduces readers to a host of colorful characters, from Garrett Falloy, the class bully-turned-hero who helps Tom ward off the Reb spy, to Swedish Captain Ericsson, who engineered the Monitor, to Captain John Worden, who would sail her. The book culminates in the clash between the two iron-clads at Hampton Roads, where the Monitor's mission is to save the Union's naval blockade. Science, history and adventure come together in this tale of suspense and intrigue that illuminates one of the more unusual aspects of the war that helped determine the nation we take for granted today.--Jennifer M. Brown

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