The Shadow of the Slave Ship - Shadows of the Past 20

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The Shadow of the Slave Ship by Wendy Leighton-Porter is a whimsical journey through time to eighteenth-century Bristol and London. Slavery is still legal in Britain, although the tide is beginning to turn on public acceptance, and there is a growing movement calling for its abolition. When a slave ship from the Caribbean docks at the port of Bristol, a young slave called Cuffey takes this opportunity to escape. A chance meeting with a strange trio and their cat, transported there from the twenty-first century, will prove to be Cuffey’s salvation and a chance for freedom. Ten-year-old twins, Jemima and Joe, along with their best friend Charlie, and Max, their talking cat, are on a mission to find the twins’ parents, James and Isabel, who are currently lost somewhere in the mists of history. By using a device called a Pyxichron, the couple has been able to move through time, but on their last excursion into the past, they forgot the key required to return them to their present. Since then, the trio and Max have also discovered a means of travelling through time and have been searching for the twins' lost parents in a series of adventures into the past.

The Shadow of the Slave Ship is actually the twentieth book in this amazing series. The author does an excellent job in the preface to explain what has happened and how both the parents and the children manage to embark on their journeys through time. Although this book is slated as a children's preteen novel, it is eminently readable for young adults, also. The character development is excellent, and readers will be able to identify with and root for the young time travellers. The author uses the story to highlight the injustices, moral repugnance, and the stain on humanity that slavery inflicted on a supposedly civilized Western society. Although the story focuses primarily on the children’s journey, I appreciated the author also telling the story, at times, from their parents’ perspective. The inclusion of notable historical characters of the period, in this case, Dr. Samuel Johnson and his beloved cat Hodge, adds authenticity and historical context. I particularly enjoyed the sometimes-sardonic wit and understated wisdom of Max, the talking cat. He is definitely one of the story's stars. The mysterious Guardians of Time also added dimension to the story, with their trained agents sent back into the past to provide guidance to wrongdoers and the opportunity to put right mistakes that may have been made. This is a remarkably complex and nuanced story that is easy to read and absorb. As an adult, I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend it.