Quality of Mercy Ransoms Girl's Spirit

Ransom of Mercy Carter by Caroline Cooney

It surprises me sometimes how very violent and graphic young adult stories can be. Books such as The Ransom of Mercy Carter is one of those novels that would have to be sanitized in order to escape an R rating if it were made into a movie.

And to sanitize such a book would be to take away the point of it. As much as I might hesitate to recommend to a sensitive young child a book that describes scalpings in detail and the sound of a tomahawk hitting a skull, I also appreciate that Caroline Cooney didn't back away from the difficult nature of the story.

The Ransom of Mercy Carter is a novelization of a historical event in Massachusetts in 1704. It was a harsh, snowy February when Indians with French rifles attacked the settlement of Deerfield. They took more than 100 captives and began marching them 300 miles north to Canada. Most of the hostages were children. Of those, many were killed along the way because they could not keep up with the rigors of the march.

Eleven-year-old Mercy Carter is one of the survivors. She makes it to Montreal and waits for ransom to arrive that can reunite her with her British family. During the wait, she learns more about her Indian captors and begins an immersion into their culture that will leave her permanently changed.

One of the difficulties about writing about historic events is that much of the plot is out of the author's hands. Cooney meticulously researched the fate of the captives and where each one of them ended up. She didn't back away from the very harsh historical facts. The taking of the settlement was an act of war and war has never been pretty. Throw so many children into the mix and it is hard to feel aught but horror.

While Cooney doesn't hesitate to show us the brutality of the Indians, she also manages to be sympathetic and to show us why some captives eventually turned down their ransom and chose to integrate with their Indian families. She explores how small pox and other diseases led to smaller and smaller Indian and French families even while British mothers were still producing a child every year. This created a tension in which children became highly desirable.

One of the strengths of The Ransom of Mercy Carter is Cooney's raw honesty. She doesn't give pat explanations or sanitize anyone's actions. She doesn't pretend that she understands why children would embrace new children and scorn a reunion with their birth families from whom they were violently torn. But she does give a pretty good rationale without ever getting overly sentimental or romanticizing the cultures of the Indians, French, or British.

That said, the novel is extremely intense. This is the sort of novel that should be approached with caution if you are prone to nightmares. It was not only the adults who were killed in the attack on the settlement or the march north. Many of those killed were children and babies. Even those who survived lived with a very real terror and the fear is palpable on every page. It is part of what makes the book so compelling, but it is also heart-breaking.

The Ransom of Mercy Carter is targeted at 9 to 14-year-olds, though as an adult I found it engaging. It is a quick read, but Cooney doesn't over simplify or talk over the heads of her readers. Her 11-year-old narrator has a clear voice and speaks easily to her peers who read her words centuries after her death.

If you're looking for a book that defies the predictable, The Ransom of Mercy Carter is worth your time. You may even walk away with new knowledge of the French-Indian War and the British settlements in America.