THUNDER RUN

Older offers the third installment in the Dactyl Hill Squad series.

Opening where Freedom Fire (2019) ended, this sequel finds 12-year-old Afro-Cuban orphan Magdalys Roca reunited with her older brother, Montez, a Union soldier in the U.S. Civil War. Third-person, past-tense narration highlights brave, genuine Magdalys’ continued fight to thwart the plans of the white supremacist Knights of the Golden Circle and ensure the U.S. doesn’t become an empire of slavery, all while battling racism, sexism, and ageism—and riding dinosaurs. In a New Orleans lit through with intimate details, Magdalys finds a mentor, LaFarge, and discovers there’s more to dino-wrangling than she’s realized. LaFarge, a white man, is a pacifist (for sympathetic reasons), but Magdalys doesn’t let him off easy, reminding him he’s forgotten “what it means to care about something enough to fight for it.” Magdalys’ path leads her to the deserts of Mexico, where the new, democratically elected president is Zapotecan—welcome Indigenous representation. Good triumphs over evil—at least temporarily—and as “safety is always a fleeting thing,” Magdalys’ commitment to the struggle persists. Another book seems likely. As usual, Older infuses what could have been a basic romp with depth, using a critical social justice lens to examine the past while also embedding in it representation that we can aspire to in the future.

More than a dino-infused historical adventure.