Silver People: Voices from the Panama Canal

Reviewed by: Ann Marie Townsend - South Berwick Public Library, South Berwick, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: November 8, 2014

Review

This is novel written in verse about the building of the Panama Canal in 1906. It follows fourteen year-old Mateo, from Cuba, who is starving and searching for work, lies about his age, and then is recruited with the promise of work and money. Once on he steamship, things are not as promised,no food, poor conditions, and, once in Panama, they are lined up by country of origin and color, then measured for coffins. The work is hard and many die. Next we meet Anita, abandoned as a baby, adopted by a healer, she sells herbs that she gathers in the forest. Henry,a Jamaican on digging crew, performs backbreaking labor, sleeps eighty men to a room, and must eat standing up. Augusto, an American geological engineer who draws birds, teaches Mateo how to draw. Written in verse, back and forth between each character's story, as well as the story of the forest, animals, trees, and other parts of the Panama forest, as the Canal is dug, the workers struggle with dangerous conditions, racism, sickness, death and threats, and the animals lose habitat, the rain forest being destroyed. The words are few but well chosen and powerful. They flow easily and well describe place, people and conditions. This is well written, easy and quick to read, but very informative and satisfying. Included are an epilogue and historical note. Well written historical fiction.

Overall Book Score: excellent