Chasing the Moon by Penny Chamberlain

Lannigirl

Bellingham

This is another great historical book. It takes place on the Saanich Peninsula in Canada in 1924. Kit returns to live with her dad whilst her mother is ill. She is sad to find how far he’s let the farm slip. The only new things are a brand new boat and a shiny padlock on the barn door. Her father says it’s for ‘night fishing’ but there’s not a scrap of evidence– no fishy smell of even a scale! There’s something wierd going on though. Then a mysterious stranger shows up and offers to help dig a well. But more is going on than what meets the eye, and when Kit’s father comes home with a bullet in his arm one night, Kit decides to take action. Along the way she meets Roy Olmestead, the most famous rum runner of all. Roy is a good character, and the only person in the book that is not fictitous. This is a great book set in the roaring twenties, when rum-runners stole through the waters off souther British Columbia in hopes of selling their wares in America, where alcohol was prohibited. Historically accurate, this book is very interesting and teaches a lot about how goods are smuggled between countries. The black trade is still in buisiness, though now the boats are smuggling illegal immigrants and drugs. You can be sure that at night when your sleeping, a boat is making it’s way accross the murky waters, and chasing the moon.