IRON THUNDER

The Confederacy has built a monster ship to break the Union’s blockade of the Atlantic coast, and 13-year-old Tom Carroll has a new job at Rowland’s Continental Iron Works in Brooklyn helping to build its opponent. The Monitor, Captain John Ericsson’s invention, is being called “Ericsson’s Folly” and “the iron coffin,” and Tom will sail with Ericsson and his crew into one of the greatest naval battles in history. Tom is the eyewitness in this entry in the I Witness series, so the volume is strong on firsthand observations and intelligent commentary, but short on historical background and context. Period illustrations, engravings, photographs and maps provide additional information. The bibliography is limited, but readers may find themselves so absorbed in Tom’s exciting narrative that they will seek out for themselves other good works on the Civil War. (Fiction. 8-12)