Cast Two Shadows
{{short description|1998 novel by Ann Rinaldi}}
{{more citations needed|date=February 2024}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2012}}
{{Infobox book
| image = Cast Two Shadows.jpg
| caption = First edition
| name = Cast Two Shadows
| title_orig =
| translator =
| author= Ann Rinaldi
| cover_artist =
| country = United States
| language = English
| series = Great Episodes
| genre = Historical
| publisher=Harcourt Books
| release_date = 1998
| media_type = Print (paperback)
| pages = 304 pp
| isbn = 0-15-200881-0
| congress= PZ7.R459 Cas 1998
| oclc= 38389984
| preceded_by = An Acquaintance with Darkness
| followed_by = The Coffin Quilt
}}
Cast Two Shadows: The American Revolution in South Carolina is a 1998 historical novel by Ann Rinaldi, a part of the Great Episodes series. It is told in first-person.
Plot
It is 1780, in the midst of the American Revolution, in Camden, South Carolina, and fourteen-year-old Caroline Whitaker, her step mother Sarah and her bratty older half-sister Georgia Ann are confined to one small room of their spacious Southern plantation home. Caroline is the light-skinned daughter of the plantation's owner and a slave who has been raised by Mama Sarah. British soldiers, led by Colonel Rawdon are occupying the place. The Colonel is also courting Georgia Ann.
Caroline and her Negra caretaker, who is also her grandmother, Miz Melindy, travel to get her 'almost' brother Johnny. He converts into an American patriot, after being whipped and spanked by a British officer for not handing over his second most prized horse- Grey Goose, aside from the most thoroughbred blooded mare in all of St. Mark's Parish, Fearnaught. Johnny's horses make many conflicts throughout the novel, including Caroline's sore wound over Kit's dab and dabbing.
Reception
In a starred review, Booklist
School Library Journal's Star E. Smith called the novel "deftly plotted and fast-paced".{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Starr E. |date=2010 |title=Cast Two Shadows |url=https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S126C706367 |access-date=2024-02-20 |website=School Library Journal |series=Great episodes |publisher=Harcourt Brace |isbn=978-0-15-200881-9 |via=Chicago Public Library |archive-date=February 20, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240220220213/https://chipublib.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S126C706367 |url-status=live }}
Lempke praised Cast Two Shadows as a novel "about something that matters", in this case "truth, secrets, and the difficulty of determining the right thing to do". Smith also commented on the novel's "provocative themes". Despite this, Kirkus Reviews suggested Anna Myers’s Keeping Room for readers looking for "a less disingenuous story set in the same place and time [that] offers a more direct view of the unusual brutality that characterized the war in the Carolinas".
References
{{Reflist}}{{Portal|Children and Young Adult Literature}}
{{Ann Rinaldi}}
Category:1998 children's books
Category:American children's novels
Category:Children's historical novels
Category:Novels by Ann Rinaldi
Category:Novels set in South Carolina
Category:Novels set in the 1780s
Category:Kershaw County, South Carolina
Category:Novels set during the American Revolutionary War
Category:American historical novels
Category:Children's books set in South Carolina
Category:Children's books set during the American Revolutionary War
Category:Children's books about African-American history
Category:Children's books about slavery
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