Dactyl Hill Squad

Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel Jose Older

This book was published on September 11, 2018, but I read an advanced reader's copy. Undoubtedly, there will be some differences between the version I read, and the published version.

An amazon summary, "It's 1863 and dinosaurs roam the streets of New York as the Civil War rages between raptor-mounted armies down South. Magdalys Roca and her friends from the Colored Orphan Asylum are on a field trip when the Draft Riots break out, and a number of their fellow orphans are kidnapped by an evil magistrate, Richard Riker. 

Magdalys and her friends flee to Brooklyn and settle in the Dactyl Hill neighborhood, where black and brown New Yorkers have set up an independent community--a safe haven from the threats of Manhattan. Together with the Vigilance Committee, they train to fly on dactylback, discover new friends and amazing dinosaurs, and plot to take down Riker. Can Magdalys and the squad rescue the rest of their friends before it's too late?" AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Magdalys is pretty feisty for someone so young, and she's very adamant that her caretakers call her by her proper name. She loves the theater, and she misses her family. Her siblings were also at the Colored Orphan Asylum at one point, but have left for various reasons over the years. The other orphans all have unique characteristics about themselves, but Magdalys is careful not to get too attached, she knows they'll all leave each other someday sooner than later.

When they go to the theater one night, riots break out. They have to escape the theater that's burning down, and also rescue one of the other orphans inside. The riots are also a guise for Riker to kidnap the other children from the orphanage and turn them over to the South to become slaves.

That's enough summary.

I could not finish reading this book. I really liked all of the characters, I loved the world building, heck, there were even dinosaurs, but... I could not stomach the racial discrimination. It was the characters suffering from racism as children, and due to the political climate in the United States right now, I found it even more difficult to read about one of their caretakers getting lynched.

I understand the book probably strives to be accurate to the 1860s, but with dinosaurs (which were pretty cool, especially how they explained and introduced them), and it's well written and all that jazz, I just don't currently possess the temperament to finish the book.

I'd like to think I'll circle back around to it in the future, but it's just not a book for me for now.

Happy reading!