The Winchesters

Grade 6-9 Chris Winchester, a poor relation of a powerful family that controls their company town, lives with his widowed mother and younger siblings in the gatehouse to the Winchester estate, and finds that he has divided loyalties between the family and the town. Now, with wages being cut and the union threatening to strike, emotions are running high. Chris is implicated in an "us versus them" incident, and he finds himself alienated from his best friend and his girlfriend. Retribution escalates until Chris confronts his grandfather and uncle and successfully negotiates his own terms of justice. Collier depicts Chris Winchester as a boy in a modern setting whose life is very much influenced by history, in this case the Depression. He successfully describes the discomfort of a boy caught in the middle of a social dilemma. Chris is not unlike two recent Collier protagonists, Fergie from Outside Looking In (Macmillan, 1987) and Harry White of When the Stars Begin to Fall (Delacorte, 1986), who also battle moral issues involving wealth and social conscience. Readers will identify with his desire to give up his doubts about his family and to enjoy the spoils of their wealth, but they will also applaud him in his final confrontations with them. A solid Collier offering. Sylvia V. Meisner, Allen Middle School, Greensboro, N.C.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.