THE ADVENTURES OF MIDNIGHT SON

Patrick (The Car Washing Street, 1993, etc.) delivers an unusual cowboy adventure tale, told through the eyes of a runaway slave, Midnight Son, 13. Leaving Texas behind on a stolen horse, Midnight makes for the Mexican border by the light of the moon. In an early, outstanding scene, Midnight is caught and crated up by the plantation owner's son, with only the surreptitious, timely nods of a fellow slave to aid in his daring re-escape. Midnight begins his first hours of freedom just over the border, where he experiences friendships with Mexican vaqueros and a startling handshake with a white man. Juan Diego's attempt to dissuade him from the harsh life of a cowboy meets the response, ``I'm looking for the chance to tell my own feet where to go.'' When he joins Slim on a cattle drive to Kansas, Midnight risks the threat of bounty hunters and faces his own swelling anger and bad memories as he goes head to head with a menacing cougar. In a voice strong and true, Patrick's narrator easily carries the story, winning readers' hearts in an unusual combination of rip-roaring action scenes interspersed with internal monologues of self-discovery. This is a serious character study, work of historical fiction, and action-adventure rolled into one. (map) (Fiction. 9-12)