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Desperate Journey, by Jim Murphy
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Two-time Newbery Honor author turns his formidable talents to this riveting suspense novel about a spirited Irish-American girl who helps save her family from ruin on the Erie Canal in the 1840s.
When Maggie's father loses next year's salary and two of their best mules in a bet with Long-fingered John, the family is left desperate for money. They have only a few days to get the heavy cargo in their mule-drawn barge to Buffalo in order to make a much-needed bonus. But when Papa and Uncle Henry are arrested on an alleged assault charge, 12-year-old Maggie, her younger brother, and their ailing mother must fight all manner of adversity to save their boat, their mules, and their life savings. Jim Murphy is at his best in this colorful and gritty slice of 19th-C. life on the Erie Canal.
- Sales Rank: #2650435 in Books
- Published on: 2006-10-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.02" h x 5.92" w x 8.38" l, .97 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 288 pages
From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8–Maggie Haggerty lives and works on a boat on the Erie Canal with her mother, father, uncle, and younger brother. Set in 1848, this novel follows what happens when her father and uncle are arrested for assault. Her mother has been ill, so it falls to the 12-year-old to get their shipment to Buffalo in time to make their much-needed bonus so they won't lose their boat and to get back to New Boston in time for the trial. Murphy gives away his nonfiction roots in the way he provides information about the number of feet the canal rises or falls at each set of locks. Given this, it's surprising that he doesn't paint a clearer picture of how canal boats actually work. Even so, the book does an excellent job of providing a sense of geography and what daily life was like along the canal. The story is driven more by history than character, but it still manages to achieve suspense and hold readers' interest. A must-have for New York state libraries, this will also be welcome wherever historical fiction is popular.–Adrienne Furness, Webster Public Library, NY
Copyright � Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
A multiple award-winning author of nonfiction, including the Newbery Honor Books The Great Fire (1995) and An American Plague (2003), Murphy moves to historical fiction in this gripping novel about the Erie Canal in 1848. The story is told from the viewpoint of Maggie Haggerty, 12, who takes over adult responsibilities when her mother is ailing and her father is arrested for starting a brawl. To save her family, Maggie must deliver a heavy barge shipment to Buffalo by a fast-approaching deadline. Her biggest job is handling the mules that walk the muddy towpath and pull the barge through the water. The characters aren't romanticized: Maggie is nervous and snappy and often feels jealous and angry at home. But the real attraction for readers is the journey itself, filled with details of daily labor on the barge and a sense of the canal community--a "neighborhood" as tightly knit and protective as any on land. Hazel Rochman
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Kirkus
The Erie Canal was “one of the greatest engineering feats in the history of the world,” a highway
for settlers heading west and a route from the Great Lakes across New York state to Albany and on to
New York City. For 12-year-old Maggie Haggerty, it's a route to a new life, preparing her for a future
in the wide world. When her father is arrested for an alleged assault, Maggie takes responsibility for
getting a shipment to Buffalo and proves herself to her family. In the process, she finds that the life
she wanted to run away from is really the life for her. The canal, however, is the real main character
here, and since the final section titled “About the Erie Canal” is the most interesting part of the volume,
fans of Murphy's nonfiction might wish he had gone with a nonfiction treatment of the subject. All in
all, though, this is a well-written story about a little-known part of American history. (Fiction. 9-12)
Booklist The multiple award-winning author of nonfiction, including the Newbery Honor Books The Great Fire (1995) and An American Plague (2003), Murphy moves to historical fiction in this gripping novel about the Erie Canal in 1848. The story is told from the viewpoint of Maggie Haggerty, 12, who must take over adult responsibilities when her mother is ailing and her father is arrested for starting a brawl. To save her family, Maggie must deliver a heavy barge shipment to Buffalo by a fast-approaching deadline. Her biggest job is handling the mules that walk the muddy towpath and pull the barge through the water. The characters aren't romanticized: Maggie is nervous and snappy and often feels jealous and angry at home. But the real attraction for readers is the journey itself, filled with details of daily labor on the barge and a sense of the Canal community––a “neighborhood” as tightly knit and protective as any on land. ––Hazel Rochman
SLJ
Gr 5-8–Maggie Haggerty lives and works on a boat on the Erie Canal with her mother, father, uncle, and younger brother. Set in 1848, this novel follows what happens when her father and uncle are arrested for assault. Her mother has been ill, so it falls to the 12-year-old to get their shipment to Buffalo in time to make their much-needed bonus so they won't lose their boat and to get back to New Boston in time for the trial. Murphy gives away his nonfiction roots in the way he provides information about the number of feet the canal rises or falls at each set of locks. Given this, it's surprising that he doesn't paint a clearer picture of how canal boats actually work. Even so, the book does an excellent job of providing a sense of geography and what daily life was like along the canal. The story is driven more by history than character, but it still manages to achieve suspense and hold readers' interest. A must-have for New York state libraries, this will also be welcome wherever historical fiction is popular.–Adrienne Furness, Webster Public Library, NY
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
And you'll always know your neighbor, you'll always know your pal if you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal
By E. R. Bird
Like every other child born in the state of Michigan, I had the history of that fine state stuffed into my little brain from an early age. I learned about assembly lines and the state bird and what a Petoskey stone was. And what song did we sing each and every year in music class? Well, it began, "I've got a mule, her name is Sal." Yup. "Erie Canal", was a classic little ditty, but somehow the story of the canal never fastened itself firmly enough in my brain. What better place then to set a historical novel? Credit author Jim Murphy for thinking it up in the first place. He plops the reader down smack dab in the middle of what could only be described as a watery stretch of lawlessness and gives the whole book a sense of the danger that went with the territory. Surprisingly poor on a couple of his details, Murphy is sometimes wholly engaging and sometimes wholly confusing. In the end, the book is great read, but only for those kids that don't mind stumbling through a tale that is difficult to continually imagine.
What do you do when your father, who never lost a fight a day of his life, loses one to the nastiest bully on the Erie Canal? You go on with your life and your job, that's what. For twelve-year-old Maggie and her family, that's just what they're trying to do. Papa lost a lot of money to a man named Long-fingered John and now the family is going to try to make an extra bonus on the ship's goods they're carrying to make it up. Unfortunately it never rains but it pours. Soon Papa and Uncle Hen are arrested for the attempted murder of a man found beaten in an alley and it's up to Mama and her children to finish the job they're on. Mama, however, is sick and Eamon (Maggie's little brother) is too small to do a man's work. That leaves Maggie to make the tough decisions. Do they trust the strange straggler who keeps offering them his help? How will they get around the many bottlenecks around the locks? Is that mule limping? Things are never easy when working the Canal is your life, but Maggie's got more strength than anyone has ever given her credit for.
Not many children's books grab you right from the start, but "Desperate Journey" did. I picked this title up idly in a bookstore intending to give it a quick go and then move on to meatier fare. Five chapters later I was still giving it that "quick go" and finding that my hands literally did not want to put the title down. Now the only books I'd ever read that were written by Mr. Murphy were, up until this point in time, non-fiction titles. Mr. Murphy knows how to take a moment in history, be it a plague of Yellow Fever or Chicago in flames, and make it entirely accessible to his young readers. And when you think about it, the Erie Canal was kind of an event as well. As the book mentions in the historical note at the end, the 363-mile-long water route was a feat of engineering the like of which no one had ever seen before. I suppose that if he had wanted to, Mr. Murphy could have set his story during the canal's construction, but he didn't. He chose to follow the men and families that worked the canal day in and day out. The choice was a smart one, even if the delivery is a bit forced now and again.
I say that I picked this book up and immediately wanted to know more, and this is true. Equally true, however, is the fact that I was absolutely baffled by how a boat on a canal worked. By examining the back cover, a person may learn that mules would pull boats from the road on the side of the canal. But how do the mules get on and off the boat? How does one boat pass another on the canal if both are attached to mules? I mean, the book feels authentic. Too authentic. Mr. Murphy skims past the duties of the boat's crew without taking the time to explain these small details to the 21st century reader. Even a map of the boat's layout in relation to the road next to the canal could have helped, but no such map is forthcoming. The result is that I struggled to imagine how most of the scenes in this book even played out when I couldn't determine how it looked in the first place. Mr. Murphy can always be relied upon to know his history and to know it well. I just wish he could have taken the time to explain it to us too.
It was nice to find that the people in the novel breathe with life. Maggie's Mama is a tough woman who'll launch herself onto another boat and punch a man in the nose if she thinks it'll do some good. She's too hard on Maggie and too skimpy with the compliments, but that doesn't mean she doesn't know what she's doing most of the time. Murphy skillfully presents Maggie's family at the start as the kind of people a tween would be just dying to get away from. Then, as that family structure is threatened by outside forces, he shows them slowly banding together to do what needs to be done. I liked the subtle switch and emphasis on how important it is to work together when times get tough. However, the character of Billy Black just made no sense at all either. I mean talk about your deus ex machina. In the book he arrives during the Haggertys' time of need to do whatever it takes to aid them along. To wit, this man, who has never met any of the Haggertys before, appears out of nowhere and is suddenly their guardian angel. I'll be the first to admit that he's an engaging character and that his presence lends quite a bit of oomph to the narrative. Just the same, he felt like a guy created for the sole purpose of moving the plot along. We know only a little about his past, even less about his motivations (he says he's doing God's will, but that's the extent of it), and nothing at all about his future. If he's more than a bit of authorial convenience then why does he remain so shadowy?
Well, it's not a perfect novel, that's for sure. It shows great promise, though. Mr. Murphy certainly knows how to lay down the dialogue, plots, and themes. A little tightening up is all the book really needs. It's definitely worth a read. I would just give the author a little more time before he comes up with the fictional equivalent of "An American Plague."
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
A Great Book to Read and Learn About the Erie Canal!
By A Customer
Desperate Journey by Jim Murphy is about a 12 year old girl named Maggie who has been traveling the Erie Canal with her family (Dad, Mom, Uncle Hen, Maggie, and her brother Eamon). It takes place in the 1840s and they are doing fine until Papa gets into a fight and loses all of their money. They have about a week to get all the way to Buffalo, New York starting at the other side of the canal. If they don't then their boat gets seized for debt. This book is about their journey down the Erie Canal and all of the obstacles.
I enjoyed this book because it tells an exciting story while teaching about American History. I really liked the character Maggie because she never gave up when times were at their worst. She was loyal to her family. I find the way people on the Erie Canal lived and made money interesting. Even though the Erie Canal was huge and a lot of people used it, everybody still knew each other. It was like a large community. This book taught me a lot about the Erie Canal and it was entertaining to read.
I wish that the author would have given me more background and information on the family. I felt like the book began in the middle of the story. I would like to know more about the history between Longfingered John and Maggie's dad to better understand the story. How did the fight between the two men even start?
I think that you would definitely enjoy this great book about a girl's life on the Erie Canal!
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
LIfe on the Erie Canal
By Willow
Maggie Hegarty's life is the Erie Canal.When her tough parents get in a pinch,at twelve, she takes on the responsibility of a 'desperate journey' as the one in charge of the family cargo boat.You'll learn about the boats and people of the ERie Canal and get a real sense of the river life they lived. But you may not understand exactly how the boats maneuvered, except that they were pulled by horses or mules and steered by a big sweep. You'll see how Maggie grows into her responsibility and grows up in other ways, as well. THe main characters are well drawn, but
the rationale behind two minor characters that propel the plot is skimpy. All in all, the story draws the reader along on a good read.
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