From School Library Journal
Grade 5–8—Sheinkin tells readers that this book is the one that he always wanted to write, one that is packed with "all the true stories and real quotes that textbooks never tell you." While he provides plenty of material about military objectives, battles, and political and military leaders, such as the title's often-miserable Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, he also includes the stories of spies, drummer boys, women who masqueraded as men to join the army, and African Americans. He ends with Grant's surrender at Appomattox and the Lincoln assassination, followed by a "Whatever Happened To…?" chapter that tells readers about the postwar lives of many of those he discusses in the text. The author's very readable effort combines the clear prose, objectivity, and good organization of a textbook with a chatty style and stories and quotes that will make historical figures real to readers. Chapters have intriguing titles, and the text is broken into easily digested segments. The book is supplemented with a variety of cartoons, illustrations, maps, and diagrams. It will hold the attention of students who are interested in the Civil War, and is broader in scope than Doreen Rappaport and Joan Verniero's
United No More!: Stories of the Civil War (HarperCollins, 2006), which focuses on individual stories. While the coverage is somewhat superficial, Sheinkin's book is a good choice to introduce students to the Civil War.—
Mary Mueller, Rolla Junior High School, MO Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Chatty and accessible, this book does double duty: it introduces Civil War history for readers who don’t know much about it and supplies browsable commentary for those familiar with the big picture. Although Sheinkin apologizes for the dull textbooks he used to write in an author’s note, his experiences give him the authority to tell the history from the inside, and he supports his material with an extensive array of source notes. His background also gives him a store of lively, interesting anecdotes, which appear here. Beginning with a look at the role cotton played in the history, his fast-paced narrative is broken into short, tersely titled vignettes (“Brother against brother?” “The bloody road to Richmond”). There’s no in-depth analysis, but that doesn’t equate with simplistic. The horrors of slavery and battlefield slaughter are clear, as are achievements of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and many more. Although the illustrations were not available at the time of this review, the informational content easily pushes this into the recommended category. Grades 4-8. --Hazel Rochman
