"Truth is a powerful thing. Sometimes it purely cries out to be told," muses 15-year-old Eliza Jane McCully, the narrator of Fletcher's (Shadow Spinner) eye-opening tale set in the late 1880s, when Chinese immigrant workers were expelled from Crescent City, Calif. The heroine lives with her parents in a lighthouse, where she appreciates the natural world around her and embraces the responsibilities she shares in caring for the beacon. When a boy named Wah Chung saves Eliza Jane from a wave, she's forced to examine the prejudice that her father and others voice toward the Chinese ("They're heathens, Eliza Jane. They contaminate us all just by being near," says her father) and decide the truth for herself. Her discussions with Dr. Wilton (her mother's doctor) on religious matters are especially illuminating. However, the Chinese characters remain two-dimensional; readers will likely come away with no greater appreciation of the depth of the Chinese culture or their struggle to assimilate. But other challenges arise that may well strike a resonant chord with readers, including Mrs. McCully's miscarriage, Eliza Jane's run-in with school bullies and growing estrangement from her father. In a bittersweet ending, the heroine finds her voice and the power that resides in telling the truth, but her bravery is not without consequences (her family is evicted for harboring Wah Chung during a storm). This spirited heroine's wryly humorous voice emerges as the novel's greatest strength. Ages 10-14. (Oct.)
