The Canary Boy of Silberberg

About this book:

In the lightless depths of Silberberg, twelve-year-old Eli has no voice—only a canary named Pip and a brass hammer to warn thirty miners when the air turns sweet with death. When a routine shift in the Eastern Crosscut unleashes a flood of poison gas from a supposedly sealed drift, Eli's warning saves the crew. But in the lantern light, he glimpses something impossible: a fresh pine board stamped with the Merchant Council's own seal, rotting behind the ventilation grate.

Above ground, the Guild counts its silver in feather beds. Below, Councilman Vane orders the secret shaft bricked up with dark mortar, silencing the timbermen who saw wagonloads of fresh wood descend into "collapsed" galleries. Eli, the mute boy no one thinks can tell tales, hears it all. Now he carries a secret that could topple the mountain's masters—or bury him in the dark.

Armed with a bird, a hammer, and a chalkboard for a tongue, Eli descends into the unmapped veins where the mountain remembers every betrayal. *The Canary Boy of Silberberg* is a gripping atmospheric thriller where the most dangerous gas in the mine isn't firedamp—it's the truth.