Ice-Out

July 15, 2016
It is the 1920s, the age of Prohibition, the automobile, and the speak-easy. Even in rural Minnesota there is money to be made for anyone willing to bend the rules. Nineteen-year-old Owen Jensen dreams of starting a car dealership. But when his father dies suddenly, it falls to him to run the creamery and take care of his family. Owen, refusing to let go of his dreams, seeks the help of Mr. Pengler, a local businessman and bootlegger. Owen quickly finds himself in over his head with the gangster. Unless he can figure out how to navigate the dangerous world of organized crime as well as the brutal winter, he will lose everything. This richly detailed look at the Roaring '20s is vastly different from the usual cosmopolitan portrayal filled with flappers, jazz, and tommy-gun-toting gangsters. And unlike the larger-than-life characters that often populate those tales, Owen is a likable, complicated hero with the same desires and fears as his more modern counterparts. The pacing lags in places, but readers willing to stick with it will find reward in the end. Owen's slice of northern Minnesota is a largely white one. An author's note tells of the real events that inspired Owen's story. A unique look at a familiar period in history. (bibliography) (Historical fiction. 12-18)

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2016

Gr 9 Up-Owen Jensen, 19, longs to break away from his family's creamery business and start his own auto dealership in 1920s rural Ranier, MN. After his father unexpectedly dies, Owen, as the eldest of six brothers, gets dragged further into the responsibilities of the creamery and yearns for a life that would have included his sweetheart Sadie Rose, now off to college in St. Paul. Despite his father's previous warnings, the protagonist is pressed into accepting the loan he requested from local bootlegger Mr. Pengler to buy a fleet of Studebakers. He becomes indebted to Pengler and agrees to join a bootleg run in return. But icy conditions in the lake-filled U.S.-Canadian border village conspire against him and pull him further into illegal alcohol smuggling, with ultimately tragic results. Owen appeared as a secondary character in Casanova's Frozen but takes center stage here. While other characters from the earlier novel also appear, this volume can easily stand on its own. The plot seems uneven at times, but this title works best as an illustration of daily life during Prohibition and the conflicts of this period. VERDICT An additional purchase for collections in need of historical fiction.-Hillary St. George, Los Angeles Public Library

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.