The Train Jumper: A Deborah Brodie Book

By Don Brown and Don Brown

OUT OF WORK AND OUT OF LUCK. Ed "Collie" Collier encounters hobos, misers, racists, and even some kindness while riding the rails during the Great Depression. Collie leaves home in search of his older brother, who has run off. Battling hunger, hostility, and wrathful weather, he meets an unlikely ally in a young drifter. They jump a freight train, joining thousands and thousands of young boys and men who try riding out the Great Depression by riding the rails.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1596432187
• ISBN13: 9781596432185
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
• Length: 122 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 11 to 14 years
• Grade Range: Grades 6 to 9

Customer Reviews

An action-packed story told in the stark language of the times

Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, Ed "Collie" Collier embarks on a cross-country adventure, jumping from one freight train to another, in search of his older brother, Little Bill. After the death of their father in a lumberyard accident, Collie and Little Bill are forced to quit school and work to help the family make ends meet. But when an argument between Little Bill and their mother drives Collie's brother to run away, Collie is left to fend for himself. His solution is to jump a series of freight trains in hopes of tracking down his older brother and of bringing him home. Along the rails--and with the help of Scarecrow, a skinny, gray-haired hobo, and Ike, an African American drifter about Collie's own age--Collie encounters one obstacle after another: angry railroad workers, crooked policemen, scamming missionaries, hunger, racism, dust storms, and the inherent dangers of the fast moving trains themselves. An action-packed story told in the stark language of the times and brought to life with vivid imagery, the novel conjures up connections to both The Grapes of Wrath and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.