Customer Reviews

Leigh Ann's Civil War (Great Episodes)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I ordered this book, I expected a conventional historical fiction novel, especially since it's aimed at young adults. The main storyline about Leigh Ann, her sister, and her sister-in-law being sent North is based on actual events that occurred in Roswell, Georgia. The parts of the book that were strictly based on this event were interesting. It's when the book went off onto melodramatic or supernatural tangents that it disappointed.

There were so many terrible things that occurred in Leigh Ann's life that were unrelated to the war, that some of things that the Yankees did to her and her family paled in comparison. There were just too many tragedies crammed into one short book. Even without the couple of supernatural instances, overall the book did not come across as believable. There were parts of the story that were very well researched by the author, but then others, such as the 14 year old Leigh Ann continually cuss and smart off to her older brothers did not seem realistic for a girl in the 1800's.

The book is supposed to be for grades 6 and up. Due to some of the events that occur in the book, I think the book is more suitable for grades 8 and up. However, the book gets off to a slow start so I think that many 8th and 9th graders might have a hard time getting interested in it.

Leigh Ann's Civil War tells a story through the eyes of a young Georgia girl whose actions defying the Yankees cause her to be sent north with the women and children who worked in the mill town of Roswell, Georgia. The book relates Leigh Ann's journey not only away from home, but from childhood to young adulthood as she faces danger while trying to make sense of the effects of the war on her family and friends. Told in the first person, the book is entertaining enough, but as a reader I never really fell into the storyline. Perhaps this will encourage young readers to learn more about history and Civil War times; for that reading level it is probably quite appropriate. The story is interesting, and gives a young person a perspective of life during the 1860's.

Leigh Ann lives on a plantation in GA. The Civil War breaks out where her family owns the local cotton mill. Similarly, her family has a riff dividing them one from another. Her father has been going insane and her mother abandoned the family and is seeing other men. Her sister's 11-year-old is being raised by her older brothers and sister.

Yankee soldiers arrive and they burn the family's mill, arrest Leigh and her sister presumably as traitors. At this point they are deported. The story is full of actual historical event that are very interesting and make this book a real page-turner.

The ending leaves some question unresolved because the family was faced with a critical deceision that is never answered.

As others have stated, the many and varied trials of Leigh Ann, a pre-pubescent girl of Georgia during the Civil War, seem implausible, but the character is engaging and sympathetic. She is stuck in a dysfunctional family at a stressful time, and some of it, such as the girl's mercenary and unkind mother, may be disturbing for some kids. In general I thought this was well written, though some actions seem unmotivated and difficult to explain. I bought it to see if it was suitable for a supplement to Civil War studies. I will probably not use it, but don't mind the time I spent reading it myself.

This is the story of a young girl on the brink of becoming a woman as the American Civil War begins. At the age of eleven, Leigh Ann Conners begins her account of the Civil War. The year is 1861 and Leigh Ann lives in Roswell, Georgia. The family is rather unusual. Their mother deserted her husband and four children and is a rather nasty person. The two oldest sons run the family mill and also the estate. The sons are also in charge of their two younger sisters. Their father is not well and needs care himself.

As the brothers prepare to leave Georgia, and fight for the Confederacy, they try their best to prepare their sisters for what might happen. Of course, the future is unknown. They do write, but the letters don't come by mail. They are delivered by a Negro woman who sells vegetables from her basket. Since the mail is not safe, she advises them to hang a quilt over the fence whenever they have mail to be picked up. That was an interesting concept for me because, in the last few years, we've been told that hanging out a quilt was also to show that an escaping slave could identify a safe house when a quilt was placed outside. Apparently quilts had many purposes besides keeping you warm and comfortable!

The brothers do make it home after the battle of Manassas. Both are wounded, but are prepared to return to the fighting; however, because they own a mill they are commanded by the Confederate government to stay home and run the mill as their service to the Cause. The story goes on to the point where the war is over and the victorious Union decides that all people who work at the Mill be punished and sent to work camps in the north. A large majority of the workers were women and children. Since Leigh Ann, now fourteen years old, was also involved with the mill, she's also sent along with the mill workers. Leigh Ann's adventures are often harsh and she matures a great deal during the three years that the story takes place.

The story contained some information that I was not aware of. The author, Ann Rinaldi includes her sources of historical information which I found helpful. The mill workers being sent up north is factual and it did not matter if women were pregnant, they were still sent away. General William T. Sherman did order that mill workers be arrested and sent north.

I've read several stories by Rinaldi and found them all to be very entertaining and I always learn some history that wasn't in my school books! Her stories are aimed at young adults, but enjoyable for adults too. My only criticism is that the dynamics for Leigh Ann's family was very strange. I didn't understand why the author threw that twist into a story that was filled with both harsh and fascinating facts and details of the Civil War in Georgia.

Leigh Ann lives with her family in Georgia at the time of the Civil War. Her brothers go off to war but return after getting wounded and stay to help make confederate uniforms in the family mill. When the Yankees (Union soldiers) come to their town Leigh Ann is arrested along with all the women working at the mill. To keep herself safe she dresses as a boy and works as a "bummer" - those who scavenged the homes for food to feed the army.

This book was so exciting that my 10 year old daughter read it in a little over a day. The story was very suspenseful and she worried about what would happen to Leigh Ann as she is forced to fend for herself in a world at war. But Leigh Ann is a great example of a strong young girl who rises to the occasion. This isn't typical historical fiction, but the strong heroine makes it a compelling read.

Being a Civil War buff, I've been looking for a book that would appeal to young adults that covered this period. Leigh Ann's Civil War entails the struggles of a young girl and her family living in Georgia during the Civil War and is evidently loosely based on real life events. While the author provides a strong voice in Leigh Ann Conners, the novel's main character, the interweaving of the history is not seamless, and at times interrupts the flow of the story. The conflict between Leigh Ann and her brother who becomes her guardian seems a bit contrived at times and one has to wonder why they are at odds with each other. The reader understands that Leigh Ann is headstrong, but the behavior that brings on the conflict with her brother is more heroic than troublesome, and we have to ask ourselves why her brother is being so hard on her.

Oddly, the book contains a fantasy/paranormal element when an owl is sent, ostensibly by her other brother who possesses some Native American spiritual powers, to protect Leigh Ann from harm. The introduction of this element is incongruent with the rest of the story and appears to be a device to deal with plot elements the author wanted to solve quickly. Another area dealt with quickly was the abrupt ending which crams so much new information and thoughts on the part of Leigh Ann as to leave the reader bewildered.

A child might be able to forego all these plot holes and devices (though so many bad things plague the poor girl as to make the reading heavy for the younger reader), but as an adult I thought the book failed as a page turner and I think a young adult will think so as well.

This was a strange book, and not at all what I was expecting. The prologue turned me off so much I put the book aside for a couple weeks and had to force myself back to it. It wasn't until Chapt 5 that I really became interested in the characters and the story, although I began to enjoy it after that point.

The prologue hammered me with too many characters and a situation so complex that it confused me to no end. I rather wish the author had not used it as a prologue, but simply inserted it chronologically in the plot where it belonged.

The first couple chapters continued in the same vein, offering expository dialogue that seemed designed to explain the family to the reader. I would rather have had the narrator explain it directly than give it to us in difficult-to-believe dialogue. And Leigh Ann did have a strange family situation: She was half-Cherokee, although she didn't know it. Her father was slowly succumbing to dementia, and her mother had abandoned the family years ago for a succession of flings with powerful/rich men. Leigh Ann was raised by her older siblings Louis, Teddy, and Viola. The father, while still living, had little authority in the house, and the harridan of a mother showed up periodically to berate her children and hit them with a riding crop (which she carries in almost every scene).

Add to all of this the Civil War, the arrest of the mill-workers by the Northern army, an illicit plan to ransom the mill-owner's wife and sisters back to him, Leigh Ann masquerading as a boy for part of the novel, and a mystical owl sent by Leigh Ann's brother - and you have an awful lot of stuff for one 300 page novel. I did care about these characters, but I wish the author had either left out some of these plot strands ... or written a longer book that did them all justice.

Not gripping or interesting to me. The dialogue is on par with Diff'rent Strokes, and the themes are just archetypes. Juvenile readers (and their parents) who are interested in the Civil War should try Across Five Aprils and others, not this dumbed down stuff.

Leigh Ann Conners is a headstrong southerner who idolizes her older brothers. They're the only anchor she has in a family full of internal turmoil. When her impetuous actions to spare the Conners' mill costs her and her sisters their freedom, she sets out to reunite her fragmented family.

I do like Ann Rinaldi's books, and think she's one of the best historical fiction authors out there today. But I also find that her books can be a bit hit or miss, and Leigh Ann's Civil War was one that I think missed the mark. It moves very slowly, taking well over half the book to reach the events found in the prologue. While I understand Rinaldi wanted to show Leigh Ann's family life and provide a basis for why she acted the way she did, I also felt that the author could have moved to the action a little quicker - the plot against Leigh Ann's sister-in-law was more interesting to me than the buildup to those events. Like other reviewers, I also felt the supernatural elements detracted from the story. Leigh Ann also seemed to take her sweet time growing up, not really learning caution until after accidentally betraying her family (in the beginning) - you would think her imprisonment/relocation would teach her immediately to be a little more careful. Finally, the ending is abrupt and unresolved, like the author just decided to stop writing instead of finishing the story.

Like most of Rinaldi's works, this book is loosely based on an actual Civil War event (the burning of the mill). It kind of felt, however, that she was trying to hard to fill in the details around the event with this story, and it just didn't hold my attention like some of her previous books have. If you're a Civil War/Rinaldi fan, try "The Last Silk Dress" instead.