Duncan Thornton

A young boy joins a northern expedition.

I'm sorry to say that I didn't enjoy this. Thornton's style owes a great deal to traditional fairy tales; there are some lovely turns of phrase and some entertaining scenes, but the heart just ain't there.

I think my main problem with the book was that I never had a chance to get to know Tom. Thornton throws us straight into the story; we see these people decide to try for a northwest passage, but we get little to no idea of who they actually are. There are few details, and none of them really show us anything about the characters. We do get a bit more information as the story progresses, but I never found it enough.

On the plus side, Thornton does make some stylistic choices designed to draw younger readers in and keep them engaged with the text. I felt that the scenes in which each member of the crew offers suggestions on the situation at hand were particularly well done; they were handled in such a way that children were practically invited to throw their own ideas out there.

I think this would have worked very well as short fiction. I might have engaged with the story itself over a shorter stretch, but the lack of character development made it hard for me to stay interested in it in the long term. The book clocks in at only 168 pages, but I'd say that was at least 130 pages too many.

To be fair, plenty of others have enjoyed this, and there are a couple of sequels/interrelated stories. Personally, though, I prefer children's lit that does a bit more with its characters and their world.… (meer)