Joseph Helgerson. Crows & Cards. Boston: Houghlin Mifflin, 2009. 352 pages, with notes for further reading and a glossary.
I don’t usually read or review books for the 8-12 crowd, but I don’t see many books in that market about ante-bellum riverboat gamblers. That being said, I really enjoyed Crows & Cards. In Zeb Crabtree, a twelve-year-old would-be tanner’s apprentice, Joseph Helgerson has created a likable character through which young readers can experience the wonders of 1849 St. Louis and its environs.
Sent off on the Rose Melinda, a Mississippi side-wheeler, to his great-uncle Seth in St. Louis, Zeb has $70 to cover the cost of his apprenticeship, which he’s not too eager to be starting. Helgerson vividly recreates the Rose Melinda, giving the reader a glimpse into what traveling on a steamer was like. It is here that Zeb meets Chilly Larpenteur, a riverboat gambler who offers to take his $70, and Zeb as his apprentice. It’s here that the adventure truly begins.
Helgerson absolutely nails the antebellum riverboat gambler in the character of Chilly. Clearly he did his research well, creating a vain, conniving, and sincere-seeming foil for the naive farmboy Zeb.
This is a fun adventure story that tackles some serious issues in ante-bellum America, particularly slavery and the treatment of Native Americans. It’s a reminder that the period was not a time of progress for all Americans, and may inspire readers to learn more about history.
As a historian who studies gambling, I give this book the highest possible recommendation. Helgerson gets his history right, and without necessarily knowing it kids will learn some valuable lessons about the ante-bellum period from reading Crows & Cards. They might not want to run off to a life of gambling, but they will certainly know a bit more about how the trade was practiced in its heyday, and may have their appetite whetted for more thorough reading, in fiction or history.