Customer Reviews

If You Lived At The Time Of The Civil War

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

on this book, unless you wish to follow the mindless politically correct rewritten version of history that you find pretty much everywhere these days. I am a teacher, a historian, and a woman whose ancestors fought proudly for the Union Army. That said, I recognize this book for what it is. If you're really looking for something historically accurate, then you would better spend your money on books which detail - even for this age group - the War Between the States in much more realistic and honest terms. They are out there. Though I'm not quite as passionate as some of the reviewers below, I agree with their sentiment entirely. This book is simply fluff with almost no historical value - actually, it's worse than that, because it does perpetuate false stereotypes. It's especially bad because it's done in the guise of educational fiction. Shame on Scholastic.

I generally have a high regard for Scholastic publications, but I am amazed that such narrow-minded bigotry and prejudice actually made it through to publication. I am so glad I previewed this book before sharing it with my children. I would no sooner read this to them than I would read them a book about "nice little Pilgrims and mean old Indians."

Current historians generally have a more enlightened interpretation of South's position in the Civil War, but Moore chooses to perpetuate the old stereotype of the evil slave owners versus the knights in shining armor of the north. Any cursory reading of the facts will tell you that this is wrong.

Though slavery was, no doubt, an issue in the war, it was not foremost, initially, and it was highlighted by the federal administration only when it became politically and strategically advantageous to highlight it. Any current reading of a Lincoln biography will tell you why he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and why he waited so long to do it.

Comments such as, "[During the war] Southern women and children had to provide for themselves, something they were not used to doing," are littered throughout the pages of this book. Besides being grossly insulting, they are blatant misrepresentations of history, and of truth.

Most Southerners, in fact, did NOT own slaves. Many were very much against slavery. And yet on every page devoted to "explaining" the Southern perspective, the story of the South is told exclusively through their position as a slave-owning population. Southerners are portrayed as uneducated hillbillies. Even the pictures perpetuate this....illustrations of northern children look like modern day preppies; the white southern children are illustrated as ragged and dirty.

Moore does mention at the end that, "The South was treated like a hated enemy." Apparently, in some corners, they still are.

This is 1 Yankee who really knows her history! I am teacher in NY state and when I took a look at this book in the library, I wasn't too pleased. Rhode Island had more slaves than any other state! Next, the South did not want to secede b/c they wanted to keep slaves, but because they thought they were being taxed unfairly. Northerners didn't give a damn about slaves, and some Northerners kept slaves as well.
Lincoln even used the issue of enslavement to gain popularity for the Union to make the Confederate states look bad. "If I could save the nation by freeing all the slaves I would do it, and if I could save the nation without freeing any slave I would do it" ~ Abraham Lincoln

While I will concede that the book is an easy read, it does talk down to the child and the book constantly contradicts itself.
One example from the book:
Women and children in the South were not use to doing things for themselves. Then showing children with barefoot.
If a child is rich enough to not "do" for himself he would not be barefoot as only poor people were barefooted in those days.
Secondly very few people in the South actually owned slaves, something the book doesn't make clear.
The issue for many Southerners wasn't slavery as much as taxes.
Like a pervious reviewer I wish the book covered Sherman's march to Sea which an effort by the Union Army to just target the Southern Civilian population.
I also wish the book was be more accurate and stated that the Northern Army didn't treat former slaves well either.

The sad part that the book didn't bring out was the fact that during reconstruction there was little to no schooling allowed for children whose fathers served in the Rebel Army.

This book IF YOU does not give the actual facts of why the Civil War was fought, such as the South was tired of paying unfair taxes, coastal water monopolies (by the North) and tariffs.
The IF You book goes with the party line of the South fought to keep slaves. Slavery while an issue of the Civil War wasn't a major issue; in fact some of the largest slave holders in the South were against secession as they felt slavery would be held safer in the Union then outside the Union [Even Lincoln wrote that Slavery would be held safer in the Union then outside the Union where the states who seceded would lose all constitutional guarantees).
Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in hopes of starting slave revolts in the South (interesting note the Emancipation Proclamation was only for those slaves in the Confederate states it did not apply to the four Northern states that had slaves or to Southern states that were under Northern control).
The book makes the Southerners look like murdering thieves while the Union come across as the fighters for justice, it totally overlooks W.T.Sherman's march to the sea which was a war against the unarmed civilian population of the South particularly women and children who were thrown out of their houses in the dead of winter without their clothes on by the Northern troops, in many cases ganged raped and left without food to starve.
The justification of such treatment towards noncombantants was that the South started the war however, it leaves out the fact that women and children in that time era had no rights and were without a voice. Women couldn't vote, weren't allowed to work, could not serve on jury duty etc.
I found this book very uninformative and full of misleading information.

I would really like to know if Ms. Moore actually believes what she wrote, or simply did it for the money. Either way, the book is shameful and filled with inaccuracies, inuendo, half-truths and fabrications. If You Lived at the Time of the Civil War is a shining example of Political Correctness at its finest. Don't waste your money.

I have been visiting with my grandchildren and in the process took a short trip to the Kennesaw Mountain National Park near Atlanta, Georgia. The park commemorates the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain fought in late June, 1864. The Confederate Army of Tennessee under General Joseph Johnston repelled a series of frontal attacks by the larger Union Army commanded by General William T. Sherman. More broadly, the Park commemorates the entire Atlanta campaign which did not go as well for the Confederacy as the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. Sherman captured Atlanta on September 2, 1864, a pivotal event of the Civil War.

As a boy, I became hooked on the Civil War by reading a series of books by James Altshelter, if I remember the name correctly, that featured a young Union soldier and a young Confederate soldier who had been friends before the War and frequently ran into each other during the conflict. The books are told from alternating Union and Confederate perspectives. As an adult, I have read and reviewed a great many adult Civil War books but I don't know many children's books. During our visit to Kennesaw Mountain, we picked up this little book, "If you lived at the Time of the Civil War" by Kay Moore with illustrations by Anni Matsick for the granddaughters.

The book consists of 64 pages of text and pictures arranged in a question-and-answer format. It is advertised for children age seven and up which seems about right. (My grandchildren are younger.) The question and answers cover briefly matters such as the causes of the war, the states which comprised the North and the South, the nature of the armies, life at home in the North and South, schooling and entertanment during the war, famous people in he war, and how life changed in the North and the South.

The book was adequate but bland. I doubt that many children will pick this up and find a passion for Civil War study that I found in the boy's books I read as a child. The book includes some good information for children, but it is dull. There may be too much text. The illustrations are well done.

I read many of the reviews of this title here on Amazon and was reminded how controversial the Civil War remains to many Americans. This is a child's introductory book, of course, and not to be judged by the standard that applies to adult treatments of the Civil War. The treatment of issues is simple in the extreme but I think even-handed. Many of my fellow reviewers fault the book for emphasizing the role of slavery in bringing about the conflict. Although this subject continues to raise passions, modern historians emphasize the pivotal role of slavery in the conflict, as opposed, say, to taxes, tariffs or state's rights, especially as far as its expansion into the territories was concerned. Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, among many contemporaneous records, was explicit about the centrality of slavery to the conflict. As many reviewers pointed out, it would have been appropriate for this book to mention that most Southerners owned no slaves at all. But I did not find that this book derogated the South. Its focus was on how the war impacted the North and South differently and that it did tolerably well. The book is actually harsh on the North with respect to treatment of the South during the Reconstruction Era. It says that various people from the North "came to control and punish according to the Reconstruction Act passed by the North. The Union Army took over the government. The South was treated like a hated enemy. This was what Lincoln had not wanted to happen." (p. 62) This is a plausible conclusion, but one which would is challenged by many modern historians. Again, I found it acceptable for a short introductory level children's book.

I think the purpose of books such as this is to whet children's appetities to learn rather than to give a dispositive description of many contentious historical issues. I don't know the best way to teach children. This book is tolerable but middling.

Robin Friedman

This book is nothing but propaganda. The author either believes this baloney and did no research at all or did research the subject an chose to deliberately misrepresent the truth. There are enough lies and deception in the world without paying good money for a book which deceives children about the truth of the War Between the States. Scholastic should be ashamed for publishing such a book.

As I have said before for adult who do not remember much from history classes these books for children can be a great beginners guide to what you don't know.

The book teaches you about what the Civil War was about, who was in it and when it took place.

I like that the book tells you about whether you would stayed in school if you were young. It gives a background racially what was going on and tells you about who was made famous or was better known because of the Civil War.

I think the book is excellent to use to gain information although personally I was more interested in the Revolutionary War then the Civil War. I know it is a big part of American history and I am glad I know more about it now.

As the saying goes, "There are two sides to every story." Even if you find it disgusting, this book could be used to instruct children on how history is often presented, and if you disagree, use some materials with it that you believe to be more accurate. I need to remind myself not to become as one-sided as I may accuse a book of being. To say, "Northerners didn't give a damn about slaves" sweeps away the whole Abolitionist movement with one broad brush. It is true that there was slavery in the North, and most people don't know that some Native Americans owned slaves! And personally I think the South was right on most of the reasons for which it went to war to defend itself. But just because most Southerners didn't own slaves and men like Robert E. Lee believed slavery would be done away with, it still remains that slavery was the Achilles heel of the South. It certainly was a major issue on the plains of "Bleeding Kansas" (1854-1861) where the Civil War actually began. If you are unfamiliar with that conflict, a couple of good resources are "War To The Knife" by Thomas Goodrich, and "Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era" by Nicole Etcheson.