Book: Tracks
Author: Diane Lee Wilson
Publisher: McElderry Books
Pages: 288
Grade Level: 5th and up
Rating: 3 Stars
Tracks is the story of a young Irish boy, Malachy Gormley, who leaves his family in New York to work on building the transcontinental railroad in California. Once he begins this adventure, he sees how different the Chinese immigrant workers are treated, and along with his horse, Blind Thomas, and his dog Brina, Malachy learns life lessons in hard work, honesty, and integrity.
I really wanted to love this book. I love historical fiction and this book is set in a time period not written about often, and the author does an excellent job of portraying the prejudices of the time and how hard building the railroad truly was. However, I felt that book was a little too detailed in the harsh winter and so much of the book was descriptive of scenery I was looking for more dialogue. Certain scenes really captured my attention, like when Malachy becomes a big gambler and has a personal debate whether or not to send his wages home to help his family or risk it all playing poker, but for the majority of the book I was bored. If a teacher is teaching about Chinese immigration in the United States and needs a supplementary text, I would suggest this book because you can capture the essence of the unfairness and how the Chinese were mistreated, and maybe the class would appreciate the book and relate to it better than I did. I felt Malachy was a weak character and remained a boy the entire journey instead of evolving into a stronger young adult, but then again, at a time when young boys were lying about their ages to help their families and enter the work force, maybe I expect more from Malachy when he was merely acting his age.
