America’s Tea Parties: Not One but Four! Boston, Charleston, New York, Philadelphia

Moss (Barbed Wire Baseball) again delves into America’s past, digging beneath the veneer of textbook accounts to reveal nuanced, lesser-known angles of a historical event. This time she spotlights the fact there was more than one “tea party” in the American colonies in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War. After describing how Britain meant to prop up the near-bankrupt East India Company with unfair import taxes, Moss explains how steadfast colonists turned back British trading ships, disposed of their cargo, or otherwise disrupted the tea trade in New York, Charleston, and Philadelphia, in addition to Boston, where “men and boys smudged their faces... to look like proud Mohawk Indians. Nobody could have mistaken them for real Mohawks, but they were definitely proud!” Conversational storytelling helps ameliorate the myriad names and dates, and a detailed time line clears up any chronological confusion. Archival images, documents, and maps contextualize the “tea revolts,” as do sidebar explorations of such topics as Sons of Liberty resistance groups and the practice of tarring and feathering. An extensive bibliography, index, and author’s note wrap up this thorough and involving account. Ages 8–12. (Apr.)