The Banjo Player - Hardcover

Hill, Elizabeth Starr

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670849677 ISBN 13: 9780670849673

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers, 1993

Synopsis

Orphan Jonathan Dale is torn between the security of his new family and his desire to be in the spotlight in the city of New Orleans. By the author of Broadway Chances.

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Grade 5-8-- As the Orphan Train heads south, carrying New York City children to new homes and new lives, Jonathan wonders what will become of him. A plucky, streetwise kid, he finds himself adopted by the Tildens, a stolid farm couple in need of extra workers. He adapts there well enough but longs for the excitement of a big city. Then he learns that Ray, an old pal from the Orphan Train, is living in New Orleans. Through a slightly improbable plot twist, he is able to trade places with Ray, who prefers farm life. In New Orleans, Jonathan perfects his skills as a banjo player and becomes a street performer; eventually he gets a job on a showboat on the Mississippi. The next three years of his life are compressed into a few short closing chapters in which he knows he will fulfill his dream of returning to New York. Jonathan and his friends seem to get along much better than Joan Lowry Nixon's characters in the popular "Orphan Train Quartet" (Bantam), suffering fewer hardships and fitting into their new lives with relative ease. This makes the story less realistic, but nonetheless enjoyable. Jonathan is a good, kind boy with a strong sense of who he is despite his unfortunate childhood. Everything repeatedly works out for the best, making the story almost too good to be true. However, the book makes for upbeat reading and provides plenty of colorful details about the late 1800s in New Orleans and its vicinity. From the farm to life on the river, readers will follow Jonathan's exploits with pleasure. --Bruce Anne Shook, Mendenhall Middle School, Greensboro, NC
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

In a prequel to Street Dancers and Broadway Chances, Hill goes back to Clement Dale's grandfather, Jonathan, on a journey from New York to New Orleans and beyond. At 12, Jonathan Dale leaves the city streets where he's gotten along on his own for years, performing for passers-by. In 1887, he boards the Orphan Train, hoping to be selected from the line of ragged homeless children for adoption. Chosen by a hardscrabble Louisiana tenant family, Jonathan struggles to fit in and to please his new parents but remains emotionally detached from them and new sister Eugenie (also from the Orphan Train). Jonathan needs people, music, and the chance to perform; the silent hours of grueling farm labor drain him. After exchanging situations with another orphan, he moves to New Orleans, then to a touring riverboat, where he's encouraged to perform once again. Hill's prose is sure and vivid. Though Jonathan's aloofness is somewhat distancing, the story hums with well-drawn characters and quiet humor, ably bringing history to life. (Fiction. 10-14) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0670849677
• ISBN 13: 9780670849673
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208