Canter Bridge

Elizabeth George Speare’s fine novel of a Barbados-born teenager who lands in chilly New England—a bit frosty in more ways than one—makes for fine young adult reading. It was also a treat for this comparative geezer, who will soon live near Wethersfield, Connecticut, the principal location in which this novel’s drama plays out.

I would recommend this novel to any young reader. It packs in enough layers of real life without the added burden of tedious ideological pleading.

Even as it entertains, the book provides a helpful narrative introduction to America’s pre-Revolutionary life in the northeast corner of these colonies and even to some of our once-upon-a-time and enduring political dynamics. Instruction like this goes down sweetly.