Recently, I read the book “Blood on the River,” by Elisa Carbone. The book is about Samuel Collier, a boy who tries to steal his mother’s locket from the pawnshop where the orphanage sold it and gets sent to jail for his crime. He is about to be sent to the gallows, but instead, he is assigned as Captain Smith’s page for their journey to America. The book is set in 1607 and is a thoroughly researched account of the journey made to America when it had just been discovered with some fiction mixed in. In the beginning of the story, Samuel is determined to be a loner, but throughout the book, Captain Smith convinces him that he needs to cooperate with others in order for their colony to survive. During Samuel’s inner struggle, many other conflicts take place and there are many other problems throughout the colony — Captain Smith, for example, is often fighting with the aristocracy on the ship and in the colony who believe that they should do no work and leave it all to the commoners, and on many occasions the colony fights with the natives or runs out of food. However, on many occasions, the problems are coming from the colony itself — the aristocracy in particular — and once Samuel learns that he must work with the other colonists to survive, the problem is getting the gentlemen to realize it too. I would rate this book 9.8/10 and recommend it to anyone interested in learning about the colonies or simply interested in reading a good book.
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