Searching for Silverheels

July 1, 2014
A teen in a small Colorado mining town in 1917 investigates a local legend with surprising results.Thirteen-year-old Pearl helps her mother in the Silverheels Cafe and earns pocket money telling tourists about the legend of Silverheels, a beautiful dancer who selflessly nursed miners in an 1861 smallpox epidemic. When Josie Gilbert, a militant old suffragist, tells Pearl the real Silverheels wasn't an altruistic heroine, Pearl reluctantly accepts Josie's challenge: prove her wrong about Silverheels or distribute leaflets for the National Women's Party. Pearl knows Josie irritates some of the locals-they find her criticisms of President Woodrow Wilson treasonous-and she's determined to prove Josie's wrong by questioning old-timers, looking at historical records and visiting Silverheels' former haunts. But when Josie's arrested during a public demonstration, Pearl discovers the real heroine of the Silverheels legend. Pearl's lively narration reveals her transformation from an old-fashioned, romantic girl into a spirited, courageous champion. Mobley uses the legend of Silverheels to effectively "raise questions about the traditional roles of women and their sources of strength," as she writes in her author's note, against the backdrop of wartime Colorado.An engrossing, plausible story of several unlikely feminist heroines with a touch of romance and intrigue. (Historical fiction. 10-14)

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July 1, 2014

Gr 6 Up-Pearl Barnell and her small town of Como, Colorado are in for a change. The shift begins when Josie, a local suffragette, challenges the legend of Silverheels that Pearl shares with some tourists who enter her family's cafe. Readers follow Pearl in her quest to learn the truth about the dancer nicknamed Silverheels, and they see her shed her complacence for a determination to do right, no matter the cost. Mobley uses the microcosm of Como to echo the broader issues of the day-women's suffrage, the Great War, prejudice, and class divisions-yet she doesn't overwhelm readers or the town with these themes. Humorous occasions, particularly a camping trip to see the ghost of Silverheels and some of Pearl's interactions with Josie, temper the more serious elements. A few flat characters, like the matronly Mrs. Crawford, Pearl's friend Imogene, and Pearl's well-grounded mother, seem mere foils for the protagonist. Between the search for the real Silverheels, Pearl's transformation and romantic decisions, and the tension between Josie and the townspeople, there is enough to keep readers interested in the story.-Hilary Writt, Sullivan University, Lexington, KY

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October 1, 2014
Grades 5-7 In a small Colorado town in 1917, 13-year-old Pearl works in her mother's caf' and introduces tourists to the legend of Silverheels, a dancer who arrived in a nearby mining town in 1860 and stayed to nurse the sick during a smallpox epidemic. Naive and romantic, Pearl is irritated by Josie, an older local woman who campaigns for women's rights. But after Josie challenges Pearl to discover the truth about Silverheels, both experience life-changing realizations. Pearl's engaging first-person narrative intertwines multiple threads, such as women's rights in the early twentieth century, discrimination against German Americans during WWI, the importance of community support for individuals in distress, and the displacement of Pearl's first crush by a more honest affection. While the story highlights several societal issues of the era, Pearl's narrative includes them not as abstract ideas but as specific events rocking her small but gradually broadening world. From the author of Katerina's Wish (2012), here's another historical novel with a distinctive voice and an unusual setting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)