|
BUSHWHACKER, THE
|
|
Written by
Jennifer Johnson Garrity
|
|
Illustrated by
Paul Bachem
|
Paperback: $8.95
ISBN: 978-1-56145-201-9
Total Pages: 196
Size: 6x9 inches
|
|
|
Middle Reader, ages 8-12/Fiction/History
|
|
|
Jennifer Johnson Garrity's interest in Missouri's difficult position
during the Civil War began as a result of conducting extensive research
into her family history. She lives in Germany.
|
|
|
Paul Bachem has worked for many years as an award-winning freelance
illustrator, producing work for most of the major book and magazine
publishers. He lives in New York.
You can visit Paul Bachem's website at: www.paulbachem.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A CIVIL WAR ADVENTURE
"A black, smoking shell stood where our house had been. The barn that'd been near to twice as big as the house was nothing but a head of ashes too. 'Pa!' My voice cracked and floated up into the early morning sky. Eliza crept up behind me and slipped her hand into mine. ‘They're dead, ain't they, Jacob?'"
|
Accelerated Reader & Reading Counts Tests:
AR Quiz#: 32241
AR Reading Level: 5.5
|
|
|
|
DURING THE CIVIL War, fourteen-year-old Jacob Knight returns from the cornfield one day to find bushwhackers--Confederate sympathizers in the Union state of Missouri--terrorizing his family. At the insistence of his mother, Jacob and his seven-year-old sister, Eliza, flee the house for safety. When the two young people dare to return home the following morning, their family is nowhere to be found and their home is burnt to the ground. Hoping that the rest of their family survived, Jacob and Eliza take the family’s one remaining horse and journey north, toward their aunt’s home in Iowa in hopes of finding their family along the way.
After traveling for several days, the children are befriended and given shelter by a kind young mother, Maggie, who was left by her husband, a bushwhacker. The children stay with Maggie throughout the winter, helping her with the farm chores, and with her infant son. The new "family" is growing comfortable with each other until a ragged stranger enters their lives. Who is this man? What will he do to Jacob and Eliza? Will the children ever find out if their family survived?
|
|
|
|
Reviews
"This gripping, fast-paced story is a masterful recreation of a time of divided loyalties and conflict.... Garrity skillfully weaves folklore and song into the narrative and captures the flavor of homespun speech. Jacob's struggle with his own emotions and his ultimate realization that violence begets more violence is both realistic and believable and one that readers will have no difficulty understanding."School Library Journal
|
|
|
More books by Author/Illustrators:
|
Anna's Blizzard
A young Nebraska girl discovers the courage to save others during a life-threatening snowstorm
Read More
|
|
|
Emma's River
Horse-crazy girls and Titanic fans will love this action-packed adventure story set on a steamboat on the Missouri River in the nineteenth century.
Read More
|
|
|
Wreck of the Ethie, The
"It was an avalanche of water bearing down on them, rushing toward them. The pillar of water grew higher and higher...As if daring the sea to their final battle, the captain swung the Ethie around to face her enemy head on. All aboard saw the wave surge..."
Read More
|
| |
|
|