Review written for ClubReading.com by Linda
n this book, Card takes the reader back to the days of the first settlements of the United States. The pioneer days aren’t exactly like those you may have read about in school; in these pioneer days, magic is real. Most people in the colonies have “gifts,” whether those are gifts of making people feel at ease, or finding water, or something more exotic. Great Britain has banished all people who believe in magic (and not surprisingly, they are the ones who can do magic) to the new world, and they have thrived here.
The famous people of our history are still there, but history is different. There different political divisions, and the founding fathers may not have the same roles they did in reality. Card not only explores the role magic might have played, but also how much of history, which we think of as so solid, was simply luck.
Just a warning: the book begins with what seems to be a senseless scene of what we might call child abuse. If I had been at home, with other reading material, I might not have made it past what is a short scene. Stick with it, if you can; the remainder of the book makes it worthwhile. And the scene (and others that Card spares us) plays a big part in the adulthood of that child.