Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2004 (Vol. 72, No. 15))
Nate Tanner gets booted out of boarding school and comes home to Pennsylvania, where his wealthy father is a coal mine operator. When Nate makes friends with Johnny, a breaker boy, and discovers a plot against his father's company, Nate's loyalties are tested. Though readers learn a fair amount of history, this is really a story about truth and the difficulty of discerning it. "There are three sides to every story," Nate is told. "Y'rs, mine-and the truth." But when you're caught between a mine-owning father and a friend who's a mine worker in a time of labor unrest, where does the truth lie? Rooting her story in family history and on the Lattimer Massacre of 1897, Hughes writes simply, relying on solid dialogue to carry much of this fine work. Though the story comes almost full circle, with Nate heading back to boarding school, he is a different person and has affected the lives of those around him. A strong story of family and friendship, rooted in a fascinating period of American history. (author's note, glossary) 2004, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 256p, $18.00. Category: Fiction. Ages 9 to 13. © 2004 Kirkus Reviews

Hope Morrison (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, October 2004 (Vol. 58, No. 2))
In the spring of 1897, hot-tempered Nate Tanner, son of a wealthy mine-owning Pennsylvania family, is expelled from boarding school and sent home for what proves to be a life-changing summer. Friendless and full of anger, Nate sets to taking long bike rides away from the family estate and meets Johnny, a Polish-American "breaker boy," who spends his days picking slate and wood from carts full of coal in one of the Tanner family's properties. Assuming a false identity, Nate starts playing baseball with Johnny and the other breaker boys, and he soon discovers the comfort of friendship he had never known. This friendship is, naturally, complicated by the secrecy and class issues underlying Nate's true background, and when talk of collective action and strike begins to surface among the boys, Nate is left wondering which side of the story is the more accurate one. His experience in the Polish slums where his friends live leads to a growing fury at his own family's treatment of the mine workers, a fury that surfaces in a confrontation with his grandpa. Basing her story upon the true events of the 1897 Lattimer Massacre, where nineteen coal miners were killed at the hands of the police, Hughes has created a compelling fictional narrative that illustrates the degree to which fact belongs to the perspective of the teller. Nate is a well-developed character and the waves of doubt, defensiveness, and self-knowing he experiences over the course of the summer are well-rooted in the events going on around him. Although the story is a bit slow going at first (Nate's anger-management issues make him a rather unlikable protagonist), those readers willing to stick it out will find this a complex novel, full of personal and class conflict and, ultimately, the violence of misunderstanding. A note and glossary of Polish terms are included. Review Code: R -- Recommended. (c) Copyright 2004, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2004, Farrar, 247p, $18.00. Grades 7-10.