THROUGH THE LOCK

Set in the 19th century, Hurst's ambitious but not wholly successful first novel follows the story of orphaned 11-year-old Etta Prentice. As the story opens, she has wandered into a cabin looking for food and shelter and ends up lodging with its resident, Walter, a boy not much older than she. Together with another boy whom they befriend, they form a sort of family, hatching a plan to operate a lock of a new canal so they can have access to a lockhouse large enough for the trio, plus Walter's mother, and for Etta to reunite her brother and sister there too. The foreshadowing is heavy, and some of the plot points move too quickly (in the course of one chapter, for instance, Etta meets Walter's drunken father, then finds him dead, then helps Walter transport the corpse to the church for burial). Plus, the ease with which Walter accepts Etta into his home and life happens too suddenly for it to be believable. Still, Hurst creates a likable narrator in Etta, a heroine with admirable determination, as well as an atmospheric backdrop with details of how the locks work, the strife the canal causes among riverside communities and references to Shaker life. Ages 10-14. (Apr.)