Customer Reviews

Red Moon at Sharpsburg

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Rosemary Wells has long been a favorite of mine from reading "Morris's Disappearing Bag" and "Stanley and Rhoda" to my now 27 and 25 year old sons to reading "Mary on Horseback" to my 7th grade class last year. Her newly published "Red Moon at Sharpsburg" is possibly her best work so far. Told from the point of view of a young Southern girl during the Civil War, it offers a realistic view of the affect this bloody war had on the lives of the people whose emotions go from total optimism that the South would win in less than 90 days to the realization that the Southern way of life has disappeared forever. The characters are three dimensional and neither side comes across as noble. Rather, all aspects of war are well developed and described in almost poetic if sometimes graphic terms. I highly recommend this novel to all readers grade 7 on up.
P.S. Teachers of US History might want to incorporate this into a unit on the Civil War.

As a child I wasn't a fan of historical fiction. Or, at least, I didn't think I was a fan. Truth be told I didn't read many titles in that genre (embarrassing Sunfire Romances aside) and it wasn't until I became a children's librarian that I realized how gaping this gap was in my personal knowledge. So I filled myself up with a host of delightful titles, at last coming to terms with this most elastic of children's books. I am now enough of a fan of historical fiction to know when it works and when it does not. Now as 2007 went on I started to hear more and more people talking up, "Red Moon Over Sharpsburg", by Rosemary Wells. It was low buzz, but sometimes low buzz is exactly the flavor of buzz that turns into awards and prizes later on down the road. Maybe this book was going to turn out to be some kind of surprise dark horse hit later in the year! I couldn't take the chance of not reading it, so it was plucked from my library's shelves and devoured on a long plane ride. Sadly, it is not the buzz-worthy little nugget of gold I had hoped for. Using familiar tropes, the book is oddly unemotional. Characters display odd inconsistencies, the narrative jumps about like a skittish colt, and in the end you feel much as you did when you started the book. This is not a story that encourages fondness or violent dislike. It is merely a mild book for a mild readership.

India Moody isn't your average Shenandoah Valley southern belle. Where other girls are learning their scriptures and embroidery, India's lightning quick mind craves science and natural mysteries. It's the start of the Civil War and when India's schoolteacher is shot in one of the early battles, she finds herself tutored by her godmother's son, Emory Trimble. Emory encourages India's love of the practical sciences, and is himself in search of the answers to curing diseases. War soon enters into India's life, however, with devastating results. Her father goes into battle, her mother's mind shatters, and India is left to discover her own path through right and wrong during a particularly difficult age.

The idea of the headstrong young woman who is ahead of her time, wanting to be more than just a future wife and mother, is a familiar children's literary trope. There are always new takes on the idea (My Last Skirt: The Story of Jennie Hodgers, Union Soldier, by Lynda Durrant being one such example) but Wells takes a pretty standard route. India thinks things like, "Girls and women will live just a step up from a good hunting dog till the moon and sun change places in the sky," and about a corset, "It constructs the mind," without having been influenced by anyone or anything other than herself. It seems odd. Sadly, there is little humor to be found here, distinguishing Wells from writers like Karen Cushman or Jennifer L. Holm. Humor is never necessary, but in this particular case I think it works to the book's disadvantage. We need a little levity between these scenes of historically accurate devastation. It would give us a rapport with the heroine, something which is sadly lacking for the most part.

Ms. Wells is actually at her strongest when she utilizes the numerous facts and historical details at her fingertips. There are some great details that give the book the flavor of authenticity it so desperately needs. For example, there's a great moment when a minister's wife moves at a funeral from mourner to mourner. "She spots whoever is weeping, then she collects the tears from the eye in a tear vase," to give as a gift to the grieving mother. Sometimes these details mean having one character explain things to another when, in reality, would be unnecessary (as with Emmett talking to India about miasmas and ill-humours) but for the most part they're worked in seamlessly. Northern readers will find that the battle of Antietam could also be known as the battle of Sharpsburg and that in the hot Southern sun a body would, "turn black and bloat like sausage in the sun."

I also enjoyed some individual sentence here and there in the book. Things like, "Winter comes in early in 1862, as if it wants to make all of life one big November." But at the same time the entire enterprise has the feel of a book written in pieces and then put together in chronological order. There's a jumpiness to the scenes. They leap from one moment to another without smooth transitions. There's also the fact that India's critique of her beloved South is inconsistent. One minute she will discuss with someone how the South could lose the war and the next she's biting off someone else's head for stating a similar opinion. More disturbing that this, however, is the book's general lack of emotion. At no point during this tale was I inclined to cry. Even when beloved characters die or disappear, the reader is not sucked into the emotions of the tale. Playful romantic scenes are also delivered in a kind of narrative monotone. At one point India's bare ankle is grabbed and she is pulled down from her horse, but we never get a sense of how she feels. Wells is not a fan of adverbs. She is a straightforward writer but not, I'm afraid, one given to adequately conveying sentiment or feeling. The result is a cold fish of a book.

For a better take on a young woman during the Civil War and her father's devastating decision to go fight, consider Hearts of Stone by Kathleen Ernst. Though Ms. Wells is as historically accurate as any reader could possibly hope for, her book is sadly sapped of emotions and the tone is off. She is a fine writer but "Sharpsburg" is not her strongest work. Consider it oddly forgettable for a book filled with death and decay.

I am a 6th grade English teacher, and I read A LOT of "kid lit." This fictional account of a young teen during the Civil War is absolutely outstanding. Wonderful themes of perseverance, family, survival. I especially enjoyed the focus on the development of medicine/medical procedures during this time period. India Moody makes a terrific heroine. I recommend this book to strong readers in 5th grade on up. In fact, this will be one of my mother's Christmas gifts!

Rosemary Wells (Mary on Horseback and the Max and Yoko books) proves herself once again to be a giant in children's literature. Her new book delves into the Civil War. Set in the magnificent and fertile Shenandoah Valley, the war's impact on this place is mirrored in the main characters life. India Moody, the 12 year old heroine, observes all of the pain, suffering, loss, a complete change in her valley and in her life - all because of the war. India's personal drive to get an education, to be a scientist, adds another dimension to her story. This historical piece will be a welcome addition to any book shelf.

LOVED this book. We live in Nebraska and this book was on the Golden Sower list to read. If you are a Civil War lover as we are you'll enjoy this story. My daughter and I read this book we are hoping the auther writes a new book to let us know what happens to the charaters.

I love historical fiction, and I was so excited to find this book about a young girl's experience in the American Civil War (and with such a beautiful cover!). It was some time before I was able to sit down with it (job obligations and such), but when I finally got a chance, I was disappointed. Ok, I'll admit it. I was bitterly disappointed.

The first thing that put me off about the book was the use of the present tense for the narrative. To me, that gave the entire book the feel of one written for a much younger audience, and it seemed to rob the book of a certain maturity I expect from young adult fiction.

But that personal preference aside, there were other issues that led to my disappointment. Most important was that there was no one in the book to really care about. By that I mean there was not a character who opened up and let me FEEL what was happening in the story along with him/her. The narrator, India, told what was happening in a rather dispassionate voice. At the risk of giving a spoiler, I'll put one example. India is wandering around the battlefield after Sharpsburg, looking for her father and stepping over and around bodies of soldiers with, as she notes, their faces blown off. But it's all very intellectual. I can imagine after reading that scene that I should have had the shivers along with India from the horrors of being surrounded by all that gruesome death in the dark, hearing the moans of the wounded, alone and afraid, terrified for what might have happened to her father. But she doesn't, and I don't. It feels like Cliff Notes, and that's not what I wanted!

I also thought Wells was a little heavy-handed in portraying India's rebellion against the restrictions life as a 19th-century woman placed on her, and also in portraying Emory's brilliance in figuring out the real problem behind infection and disease. However, she had her history right. I just wish it had been embedded in a more captivating story.

In her notes, Rosemary Wells says, "I hope my story will reveal something deeper than fact, and that is the profound immorality of war."
Red Moon at Sharpsburg succeeds as both a historically accurate depiction of the American Civil War from the perspective of the first person narrator, young India Moody, but is also a detailed and horrifying vision of a war that was fought mostly in the cornfields, orchards and homes of the South. We in America have been protected from those horrors. The War for Independence, the War of 1812 and the Civil War are the only three that have been fought on our own soil. Time and distance allow us to glamorize and glorify war in a way that those who actually live through it cannot. India Moody may begin the war with thoughts of glory, but those thoughts are very soon dispelled by its realities. That is intentional.
The author writes in 2006, in the beginnings of the second Gulf War in Iraq, which gives her work an added dimension and an added impetus. "What happened in Virginia a hundred and fifty years ago," she writes, "is just as relevant as today's television headline news. It is easy to start wars, but much harder to stop them."
Indeed, many times in the story, India wonders why the war continues when the outcome is inevitable, only to find to her horror that wars have a life of their own and will continue until someone yells "Uncle." Causes are meaningless; war is its own justification.
But, Red Moon at Sharpsburg is not just a diatribe against war; it is also a compelling story of a remarkable gifted young woman struggling against the almost insurmountable obstacles imposed on her, not only by the war, but also by the rigid expectations imposed on an ante-bellum Southern woman whose life consisted of studying Scripture and domestic economics, not "men's work" such as science and medicine.
India longs for more. She is the daughter of a simple harness maker whose fortune is changed one day when he saves the life of a wealthy plantation owner, Cyrus Trimble. India becomes his god-child and is introduced to the wonders of Southern aristocracy (which Mark Twain described as based on the works of Sir Walter Scott) where women are expected to run the house, teach morality to their children and not a lot else. She is tutored by his asthmatic son, Emory Trimble, who quickly discovers her aptitude for "men's science" and forms an intellectual bond with the girl that, over the next three years, and in spite of grave difficulty, grows into a passionate devotion.
The novel is filled with colorful and often heartbreaking characters on both sides of the conflict. These are characters that are molded and defined by the environment. The Civil War is not merely a backdrop in this story, but is almost a character in its own right, devouring, shaping, and defining the people in the story in ways that they could not possibly have foreseen prior to its entrance into their lives. There is an intimacy here that is born of the author's twelve years of research into the times and the people of the era, research into the private journals of those who lived through it as well as texts on battle strategy, medical practices, politics and fashion among others.
There is a certain lack of emotion in the first person narrative of the book, but that is precisely what makes it such an accurate depiction of war. To remove a dead soldier's boots, a soldier who has been dead for some months, and put them on your own feet because you need them, to steal Federal Dollars from a dead union soldier because Confederate money is worthless, require a great deal of emotional distancing. When confronted with the realities of war, India cannot help but tamp down her emotions, which is quite the opposite of what those who have never experienced war might expect.
Sometimes, the line between a novel for young people and a novel for adults blurs. Red Moon at Sharpsburg is one of those times. I would recommend it highly for adults as well as for its intended audience.

As a history teacher, I was excited to see what I thought would be a book on one of the Civil War's bloodiest single day battles. I kept looking for concrete facts about the Battle at Sharpsburg (Antietam) and was surprised when I realized that the battle was just a mere mention rather than the focus of the book.

It did highlight the destruction caused by the North but left out key individuals which would have made the book a nice teaching resource. The book also down played-- until the end, how the war divided families and friends, and completely left out the role African Americans played in the war.

A better book is The Bravest Girl in Sharpsburg (Wm Kids, 5)

My daughter (13, 8th grade) loves to read. She reads a couple of hours every day and has read several historical novels and novels set in war time (Slaughterhouse Five, The Boy with the Striped Pajamas, The Diary of Anne Frank, even Calico Captive). One year it seemed that most books on the Battle of the Books list was about various wars.

In all of that reading, this is the first book (required reading for school), that she's had difficulty forcing herself to get through. She says it's probably one of the most dull books she has ever picked up. Coming from an avid reader who will read just about anything, I take this as a definite sign that this is a book that should be skipped.