Uncertain Glory

Joe Wood has dreams. Big dreams. He wants to be a newspaperman, and though he s only fourteen, he s already borrowed money to start his own press. But it s April, 1861, and a young nation is teetering on the brink of a civil war.As effects of war begin to spread over Joe s hometown of Wiscasset, Maine, he must juggle his personal ambitions with some new responsibilities. He has to help Owen, his young assistant, deal with the challenges of being black in a white world torn apart by color. He needs to talk his best friend, Charlie, out of enlisting. He wants to help a young spiritualist, Nell, whose uncle claims she can speak to the dead. And when Owen disappears, it s up to Joe to save him.Lea Wait skillfully draws on the lives of real people in Maine s history to tell this story of three young adults touched by war and the tension it brings, forcing them into adulthood before they may be ready."