Across Five Aprils [Turtleback]

Irene Hunt (Author)

Product Details

• Turtleback
• Publisher: Demco Media (October 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0606002898
• ISBN-13: 978-0606002899
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (226 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,776,003 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This was the best book iv'e read in a long time, September 6, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Across Five Aprils (Mass Market Paperback)

This book I had to do for summer reading. My story is actually very ironic. In the beginning I didnt want to read the book because people who have previously read it were saying that this was the worst book ever. So I blew the book off and totally forgot about it. And when it was two days before the first day of school I relised that I still have yet to read the book. So i found out how many chapters were in the book and made a reading schedule. So I read six chapters a day. But when I got to chapter three I relized how good this book really is. It was soo heartfelt and real. I literally felt as if i was sitting rite next to Jethro and Bill in the field. It was a really strong story and plot line. I could feel the anger, the sadness, and the fear in this book. And when I finally came to the end of the book I didnt want the story to end. I wanted more. I wanted to know what happened to Bill and Eb. I wanted to know if Shadrach and Jenny had any children. I wanted the story to last forever. That is the best book that I have ever read in my entire life. And I would read a thousand times over if I could. I recomend this book for anyone who is from the age 13 up and to anyone who is interested in how the people lived in the Civil War when they weren't the ones fighting in it. So that is why I give Across Five Aprils five out of five stars.

44 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No explosions or mayhem, just heartfelt family drama, September 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Across Five Aprils (Mass Market Paperback)

If you are looking for a war adventure story with lots of explosions, forget it. If you are interested in what war does to a loving family's everyday life, this is your book.

Jethro Creighton, the central character, grows from the carefree "baby of the family" to a hardworking, thoughtful adolescent who has seen his brothers go off to fight and in one case, die in the Civil War. Two of the family's sons fight for the Union, one for the Confederacy, and Irene Hunt explores in some detail the ways in which everyday farming folks dealt with these divided loyalties.

Hunt is not the sort of writer to condescend to young readers.She creates situations that make you think and reflect. So maybe a junior-high reader who is "made" to read Across Five Aprils would find it tough going.

I first read this book when I was in high school, so I was a little older than some of the readers who seem to be having major problems with it. Twenty years later, it's still a book I re-read from time to time. Hunt's characters lose none of their vividness -- when you're an adult, you find a whole new interest in her portraits of Jethro's parents and their anguish over their children in wartime.

My advice is, if you're being told to read this for a report and you don't like it, grit your teeth and get through it -- but don't throw the book away. I guarantee that in a few more years you will love it -- unless you've given up on reading altogether.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great historical novel ends with a fizzle, June 5, 2001

By 

Gwyneth Calvetti (West Salem, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Across Five Aprils (Mass Market Paperback)

I read Across Five Aprils along with my own son and the 8th graders I teach as part of a unit on the Civil War. Ms. Hunt does a wonderful job of drawing her characters, particularly Jethro Creighton. Jethro and his family, farming in southern Illinois, find that even though they are not in the midst of the battlefields, their lives are nonetheless swept up in the events of this tragic period in our history. Jethro's growth and understanding of the sweep of history as well as of himself are well-detailed. Well they might be, as Ms. Hunt crafted this story from family stories of her great-grandfather, who was the young protagonist, making this novel something between historical fiction and family lore.

She deftly weaves the family events with historic fact, adding faces to the stories in the history texts. As a midwestern gal myself, I found the perspective of a family from that part of the country to be very interesting. Many other similar works make their settings much closer to the historical action, and it is this unique setting that allows the reader to understand just how all-encompassing the Civil War was for the whole country.

I found the last few chapters to be disappointing, as she seemed to want to rush to the end of the war and hence her story. The writing took on a feeling of newspaper reports of battles, with very little of the narrative from the Creighton family viewpoint that made the book so engrossing.

As a teacher, I feel that the authentic dialect that was used in the dialogue might make for somewhat difficult reading for many kids who struggle with involved text. Nonetheless, a book such as Across Five Aprils makes for a much more interesting and meaningful study of the Civil War than the dry texts we read and forgot.