http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rebel-Cargo-James-Riordan/dp/1845075250

Synopsis
Abena is a rebellious Ashanti girl sold into slavery on the notorious Transatlantic route from West Africa to Jamaica. Mungo is an English orphan who becomes a cabin boy, only to be kidnapped and sold as a white slave. Fate brings the two together and Mungo, risking life and limb, saves Abena from a terrible death. Together they escape and set out towards the Blue Mountains - where rumours tell of a stronghold of runaway slaves ruled by a legendary leader called Nanny. But can Abena and Mungo slip through the hordes of Redcoats and baying bloodhounds sent to drag them back...? Based on historical events, the novel unflinchingly describes the conditions of black and also white slavery in the 18th century, when profits took precedence over human life, and ends on a strong note of hope.

http://www.tes.co.uk/reviewbank/product.aspx?productId=2046&title=Rebel%20Ca...
Reviewer: Tom Deveson
Review date: March 19, 2007

Two stories gradually become one in this stirring 300-page story for readers aged 10 and above. Mungo is a white English orphan from the early 18th century, scraping a poverty-stricken existence in Portsmouth and then as a cabin boy before he is kidnapped and sold as a slave. Abena is an Ashanti girl who wakes to find herself among many more chained black bodies in a filthy prison, bound for the slave markets of Jamaica.



James Riordan, an award-winning writer for young people, skilfully interweaves their adventures and it’s only past the halfway point in the story that they meet. They escape and set out for the Blue Mountains, searching for the community of runaways who forcefully resist the efforts of soldiers and bloodhounds to return them to their “owners”. There are plenty of desperate incidents and all too believable scenes of horrible violence. We meet pirates, planters and preachers and hear the justifications they offer for treating fellow humans as beasts of burden. The story is set well before the abolition of the slave trade, so there is, rightly, no conventional happy ending. But though “the price of wanting to be free” is seen to be high, hope and love are nonetheless allowed to triumph over despair and hatred.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts/books/reviews/article2464160.ece
James Riordan also looks to the past in Rebel Cargo (Frances Lincoln, £9.99). This searing tale of slavery during the 18th century is not subtly written, but its unflinching descriptions of the appalling cruelty of the time make matters of style seem unimportant. Bringing together the story of a neglected orphan in Britain and a young African slave in the West Indies, it still manages to come up with an almost happy ending. This is a book to read at a time when the national myopia over what slavery entailed is challenged as never before.

http://goldcreek.act.edu.au/yara/
Rebel Cargo is an historical novel set in the eighteenth century. It follows the story of two children: Mungo, a white orphan forced into fleeing his home into the service on a ship, who is then sold into slavery; and Abena, a black girl, kidnapped by her own people and sold into English slave ships.

Mungo is an English boy, orphaned at the age of 6 when his parents die in a shipwreck. He lives off the charity of others, until one day he is forced to leave his home and he becomes cabin boy on The Adventure Galley.

Abena is a young black girl, living in Africa, and when readers are introduced to her she has just been kidnapped. We learn later in the novel that she has been kidnapped by a member of her own tribe, to be traded for alcohol and other English trinkets. She, along with her family and members of her community, are sold onto a slave ship and face horrors under the watch of the captain.

The novel follows their stories and the injustice they face as slaves, both as a coloured slave and a white one.

The novel is targeted at older readers, both because of the sophisticated style of the writing, and also the subject and themes are better suited to a mature audience.

I think that the novel is written very well, and has an important message; however, I thought that some of the events in the book were a little unrealistic. Several things happened, which didn’t detract from the novel, yet seemed as if had been put in just to make it more ‘interesting’. Also, I personally didn’t like the ending, as it seemed too neat, and too unrealistic.

Review in Viewpoint 15/3 Spring 2007 ( )