Thirteen year old jack Hicks loves everything about
Coppertown – his family and friends. Barbeques and Friday music nights, and his
best friend’s beautiful sister, Hannah. Everything. That is, except for what
keeps the community thriving and drove out nature long ago – mining, living in
a treeless landscape that looks like the moon. He yearns to see the bugs and
birds and frogs outside of books.
When the miners strike, Jack is thrilled that green and
growing things at last have a chance to return to the red hills. But when that
same strike threatens to close the mine and force people to leave Coppertown
for new homes and jobs, Jack finds himself struggling to hold onto everything
he loves.
I am nineteen years old. I’ve attended enough of social
studies and environmental science classes to know all about how man kills
nature. So when people talk about AVOID PLASTIC and PLANT MORE TREES and RUN THE
ICE CAPS ARE MELTING, I yawn.
I expected this book to be another lecture. Big mistake. So
when I found myself listening to Jack talking about how “living on Coppertown
was like living on the moon”, how Miss Post taught them about trees and amphibians
and birds when there weren’t any, how the fog left holes in his mom’s stockings
hung out to dry, I kept listening.
But this book isn’t
all about how the mining industry in Coppertown killed all the birds. It’s also
about a fourteen year old boy dreaming about dirt bikes and crushing over his
best friend’s sister. About Friday music nights, fishing, breaking an arm over
a dare, rubbing a rabbit’s foot for luck, praying for his dad’s safety in the
mines, blackberry picking with his mom and best friend, and agonizing over the
fact that he didn’t like the future his dad already decided for him.
The tone was nicely set – it wasn’t dragging, it wasn’t
hurried, not too descriptive that it doesn’t help the story along. I really
liked Jack’s voice. Some pages managed to pull me through and transport me to
the tailings pond where he took home Little Man and next to Piran listening to
the “chick-a-dees”.
I loved Coppertown. Although it is the very example of how
negative an effect we have had on our planet, Dulemba has managed to make me
love the people and the shy green.
DO NOT MISS OUT ON THE AUTHOR’S NOTE.
VERDICT: 4 stars
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