Black Duck

Black Duck (2006), a young adult historical novel by Janet Taylor Lisle, is set during the Prohibition and follows a young boy who’s caught up in gang warfare and liquor smuggling. The story was inspired by the real Black Duck smuggling boat in Rhode Island during the 1920s. Black Duck received nominations for the 2008 Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award and the 2009 Missouri Truman Readers Award. Lisle is a popular young adult mystery and suspense writer whose accolades include the Newbery Honor.

The real Black Duck was a rum-running boat that transported rum from freight ships to the shore where smugglers moved it around the country. In the book, the Black Duck plays this same role. The story is set in New England during 1929, and the Prohibition is at its height. Ruben Hart has been involved in the rum-running business for most of the Prohibition, and he’s very good at it.

Many years after the fact, David, a young aspiring journalist, approaches Ruben. His parents want him to become a landscaper like his father, but he finds this boring. He thinks that if he can show his parents he has potential, then, he might get hired as a news writer. They can’t make him join the landscaping business if he already has other plans.



First, David needs a big article to sell to a paper or magazine. He wants to cover a story set during the Prohibition era because he knows how important this period was in shaping US history. He also thinks it will show off his investigative and writing skills. He approaches Ruben because of his notorious reputation, but Ruben won’t talk to him at first. He denies knowing anything about the Prohibition and rum running.

David, however, doesn’t give up, and eventually, Ruben is happy to talk to him. He knows David isn’t trying to get him into trouble. The rest of the book is spent looking back at Ruben’s past rum smuggling escapades, which he narrates to the boy. David makes infrequent appearances at intermissions from this point onward.

Ruben’s story begins down at the shore with his best friend, Jeddy. Together, they scour the beaches of New England looking for lobster traps. If they find lobsters in the traps, they’ll earn themselves some money. However, one night, they don’t find any lobsters. Instead, they find a dead body washed up on the beach.



The boys are frightened, but taking a closer look, they see the man has been shot. They try to identify him, but he doesn’t have any ID on him. All they can do is tell Jeddy’s father, the local sheriff. By the time the police arrive at the shoreline, the body has disappeared without a trace. Although the sheriff warns the boys to stay out of whatever is going on, they can’t help themselves. They found a dead body, after all—they want to know what the story is behind it.

In the meantime, when they’re not thinking about the corpse on the beach, they’re trying to make extra money. Ruben tells Jeddy a secret—he took a pipe and tobacco pouch from the scene of the crime, and now, he doesn’t know what to do with it. Jeddy says they should tell his father, but Ruben is too scared. Instead, they decide to pretend they never found the items.

Over the next few months, the boys spend less time together. The sheriff doesn’t want Jeddy hanging around with Ruben as much, and he gets him a job in a chicken farm. Jeddy doesn’t see Ruben for weeks, and the sheriff appears to relax. What Jeddy doesn’t know is that bootleggers kidnapped Ruben because they think he possesses something they want—the tobacco and the pipe. When Ruben is freed, Jeddy doesn’t know he was ever in danger.



Meanwhile, Jeddy discovers his father isn’t as innocent as he seems. He knows who all the smugglers are, and he turns a blind eye in exchange for payment. He also discovers that Ruben’s father works at a store operated by a bootlegging crew—and that Ruben has started helping the crew out. Jeddy doesn’t tell the sheriff, but he is really worried about Ruben.

One night, Jeddy finds out the police are going after the Black Duck. This is the boat that Ruben’s crew works on. Jeddy tries to warn Ruben, but he’s too late. The police start shooting at the crew, and Ruben barely escapes with his life. After this, the relationship between law enforcement and the smugglers reaches a breaking point, because it goes against their arrangement.

Although Prohibition ends across the U.S. shortly after the events on the Black Duck, Jeddy and Ruben’s friendship changes. Ruben feels there’s so much he can’t tell Jeddy, and Jeddy is disappointed in his old friend for getting involved in the first place.