In her second children’s novel, Ann Towell of Shetland, Ontario, employs a little-known historical event as the foundation for a solid coming of age story featuring complex characters and a nuanced exploration of race and class issues.

In 1863, the tiny town of Oil Springs (near present-day Sarnia) is little more than a swamp, but one that teems with black gold. As a result, it’s booming with hordes of men seeking fortune. It is also home to many former slaves who came to Canada via the Underground Railroad. And there is one boy in town who’s not supposed to be there at all.

Twelve-year-old Titus Sullivan stows away in the back of his older brother’s wagon to escape the strictures of his tyrannical Aunt Sadie. Titus, who is white, befriends Moses, a black boy his own age, and the twosome start a business providing tours of the local oil operations to curious city folk. As time goes on, Moses and his kin become less welcome – they are accused of stealing jobs from whites because of the lower wages they have no choice but to accept. When the town erupts in a race riot, Titus has to make a choice.

Grease Town’s skilful first-person narration lends the novel an authentic tone. The book is rich with action and conflict, and Towell satisfyingly draws out tensions between the raw machismo of the mostly male populace of Oil Springs and the civilizing influences of both Aunt Sadie and Mrs. Ryan, a teacher who instills in Titus a love of reading that he passes on to Merry, a spunky servant girl.

Despite the novel’s thematic focus on racial injustice, Towell resists the urge to provide the reader with unsubtle life lessons. And although there are some clear heroes and villains, the book’s secondary characters, and Titus’s perceptions of them, are often more complicated. His enormous, bearded Uncle Amos is not ashamed to cry, for instance. More rewarding still is Titus’s begrudging appreciation of his Aunt Sadie’s passion and her protective love, even though she doesn’t approve of him befriending a black boy or fraternizing with Merry. In Grease Town, as in life, human relationships are far from simple.