REDEMPTION

Twelve-year-old Lily and her mother are forced off their English land by the baron’s men. Her father has been missing for many months now, and they are to seek safety from religious persecution in passage to the New World. But all is not what it seems, and the nightmarish voyage, the evil baron, and Lily’s loss of innocence on board the ship are just the beginning of Lily’s travails. When the ship literally crashes into the New World and breaks apart upon the rocks, Lily and the baron’s son Ethan go ashore and begin a new life there. Set in the early 1500s, Chibbaro’s debut explores the early settling of America, with Europe’s transition from Renaissance to Reformation as the backdrop. Chibbaro writes colorfully, and the monstrous baron, religious dissenters, the Atlantic crossing, and the early meetings of Europeans and northeast woodlands Indians, well before Jamestown in 1607, offer a fascinating look at a little-known side of American history. (historical note, author’s note, bibliography) (Fiction. YA)