+ N Y Times 25:33 Ja 18 ’20 270w
“It is the sort of story to be read with enjoyment by girls in their teens.” R. D. Moore
+ Pub W 97:179 Ja 17 ’20 90w
GREENBERG, DAVID SOLON. Cockpit of Santiago Key. (Open road ser.) *$1.50 (3c) Boni & Liveright
20–775
A Porto Rican story for boys and girls. Young Felipe lives with an uncle on Santiago Key, a rocky island off the coast. His uncle’s sole duty is to keep the light burning and the island is seldom visited. From the point of view of Don Enrique and Don Alejandro it is an ideal place for a cockpit, since the Americanos, who had forbidden cockfighting in Porto Rico, would be little likely to find it. Felipe enters into the sport and it is only after he goes to the American school and comes under American influence that he begins to see what his old grandfather had meant by the “curse of the cockpit.” A hurricane sweeps over the island, and leaves Felipe homeless, but his American teacher adopts him and takes him away to the United States.
“Much information about customs and country.”
+ Booklist 17:122 D ’20
“Morals and local color are not, however, the only requisites for a good juvenile story. Plot is the first essential, and it is in this particular that ‘The cockpit of Santiago’ is somewhat weak.” G. H. C.