January 1, 2011
After being forced by his angry, alcoholic, Irish-immigrant father to dig up newly buried bodies and sell them to a nearby Philadelphia medical school, 12-year-old Robby Hare's luck turns from bad to worse when his family rents its last vacant rooms to devious William Burke and his typhoid-survivor daughter, Martha. Even as Robby and Martha traipse around their neighborhood, helping mentally challenged Daft Jane and other needy folks, the two cloying do-gooders also try to figure out where their cunning fathers continually disappear together and why late-night visitors are mysteriously absent the next morning. Although she bases Hare and Burke on infamous, real-life murderers from 19th-century Edinburgh, Scotland, prolific historical-fiction author Myers misses the mark this time with a creeping pace, stilted dialogue and an anticlimactic ending. Even Robby's gruesome job at the medical school (where he's asked to dump body parts in a well and allowed to observe early modern medicine), his observations on women's inequality and his budding independence are not enough to hold readers' attention. (author's note) (Historical fiction. 8-12)
(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
March 1, 2011
Gr 5-9-It is the 1800s in Philadelphia, the home of the nation's first hospital. Doctors use bodies robbed from graves to conduct medical research. Robby Hare's father forces him to help dig up the corpses and then sell them to the medical college to help make ends meet. Despite his reluctance, the boy is intrigued by the discoveries that doctors may make from the cadavers. He sees firsthand what they are doing behind the scenes when he is offered a job to help clean at the school. Still, Robby wishes his Da would stop grave robbing. When mysterious William Burke and his daughter come to live in the Hares' boardinghouse, Robby is able to avoid the graveyard by this distraction, but suspects that Burke is involving his father in some possible murders. He must expose their plans before more lives are taken. Myers based this book on the true story of Burke and Hare, who actually murdered people in the 1820s and sold their bodies in Edinburgh, Scotland. She switched the city and took some liberties with the plot; nevertheless, this is a well-written and fascinating look back in time.-Shannon Seglin, Patrick Henry Library, Vienna, VA
Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
April 15, 2011
Grades 4-7 Countless literary and cinematic takes on nineteenth-century grave robbing focus upon famous killers Burke and Hare, and this middle-grade novel is no exception. Shifting the location from Edinburgh to Philadelphia, Myers loosely truth-based account focuses on 12-year-old Robby Hare, the son of a bullying inn owner. Bad times get worse when Robby is employed by his Da to dig up a body to sell to a local medical college for dissection. Robby is determined to never again do such a thingand then a boarder named Mr. Burke moves in. While Robby befriends Burkes daughter, Burke and Hare concoct a fiendish plot to produce fresh new corpses right there at home. Its far less gruesome than it sounds, with most of the action revolving around the good deeds of the innocent Robby. The moral quandary of whether the practice of grave robbing was worth the scientific knowledge is largely sidestepped in favor of Robbys budding interest in being a surgeon himself. Still, this is a handy introduction to a fascinating bit of history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)
July 1, 2011
In 1800s Pennsylvania, twelve-year-old Robby Hare is horrified by his father's new scheme for making money: robbing graves and selling the bodies to a teaching hospital. He's also captivated by the investigation of human anatomy and how studying cadavers can save lives. This intriguing fictional account explores the morality of human dissection and its place in the history of medicine.
(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)