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[Storm Warriors] by [Elisa Carbone] has been on my reading 'pile' for sometime. As a middle school teacher I love to add books to my library. This one is definitely a gem.

The story is about the Pea Island Life Saving Station. These stations were what was to become the Coast Guard. What makes this station's story unique is it was fully manned by African Americans at a time when Jim Crow was rearing his ugly head.

I would love to read this one with my seventh graders. ( )

Inspired by the rescue crew based in the Pea Island Life-Saving Station in the 1890s (located in North Carolina Outer Banks region), this work revolves around a young (fictional) teenager and his family, along with his interactions with the rescue crew of Pea Island. Along with documenting numerous actual rescues that the crew performed, the work also draws an eye to racism and race relations in the region and time of the work.

Both believable and fast-moving, Carbone's work is engaging and interesting, and the young narrator's voice is perfect for the narrative and developed situations--it does a marvelous job of capturing the mix of comedy and drama that wraps up the life and viewpoints of a young teen. And as a young adult work, it does work well, though my one related critique might be that there is so much seriousness based around the family, and it's almost too much seriousness (in my opinion) for a book meant for young readers. I'd understand if all of the drama surrounded the rescues, but I felt as if that suspense and seriousness was more than enough for the novel, and I would have preferred the focus remain there more consistently (when it came to the serious moments in the book, at least).

On the whole, this is a great young adult example of a work that usefully mixes "real" history and a fictional narrative, and it is a fast and often suspenseful read. On the other hand, there's much seriousness here, and not just related to the rescues and to civil rights. At the least, I'd recommend parents read it before passing it on to young readers. Certainly, the reading level is appropriate to fourth or fifth graders and up...but the material itself might be more serious than some parents would expect, in many respects. Personally, I doubt I'd directly pass it on to any readers under an eighth grade level unless I knew them well and/or they had a specific interest in the subject. ( )

Being a short novel, it took a little while for there to be action. The pacing was a bit off when I think there could and should have been a new chapter started, Carbone just made a new paragraph.
It is an interesting story about how the coast guard came to be and the racism that was present in the late 1890s to the African American crew. ( )