Ghosts of the Civil War (Harness' Ghost) |
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You Are Here: Home > History Books > Civil War > Item 311
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Ghosts of the Civil War (Harness' Ghost)
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by Cheryl Harness
Sales Rank: 545410
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List Price: $7.99
$7.99
At Amazon
on 9-17-2008.
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Features
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Cover Type: Paperback with 48 pages
Published by: Aladdin April 27, 2004
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0689869924
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0689869921
Book Dimensions:
9.7 x 9.6 x 0.3 inches
Weighs: 8 ounces
From School Library Journal
Gr 2-4-Young Lindsey, bored and cranky as she visits a Civil War reenactment with her parents, is transported back in time when she meets the ghost of Willie Lincoln. Starting with the arrival of the first slaves in 1619, Willie explains the origins of the war and its history. Using highly detailed, captioned paintings, sidebars, and annotated maps, Harness imparts a great deal of information on each spread. In fact, there is no white space in the entire book. The excellent-quality artwork and hand-lettered captions were created using watercolor, ink, and colored pencil. The major battles and campaigns of the war are described, as are political events such as the Emancipation Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address. The story concludes with the assassination of President Lincoln, who, reunited with his beloved Willie, sends Lindsey back to her waiting parents. The final pages of the book include biographical sketches of the major figures, a large map summarizing the battles and troop movements, pictures of the various flags, and a list of wartime firsts. This book, while chock-full of information, is nearly impossible to read aloud to a group and may miss its target audience. Younger readers, attracted by the pictures, will be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information. Older children who would benefit from the detailed presentation may be wary of the easy format and the contrived fictional framework. Still, this is a good choice for elementary students with strong reading skills who are studying the period, visiting a reenactment or battlefield, or interested in the War Between the States.
Rita Hunt Smith, Hershey Public Library, PA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Gr. 3-5. Similar in format to Harness's Ghosts of the Twentieth Century (2000), this story opens with a girl and her parents attending a Civil War battle reenactment. Striking up a conversation with a boy dressed in nineteenth-century garb, the girl discovers that he's the ghost of Willie Lincoln. Together they travel through time and view events taking place before, during, and after the Civil War, from the Lincoln-Douglas debates to the assassination of President Lincoln. The pages are packed with information hand-lettered in the vertical borders of each spread. The paintings are full of period details, mini-dramas involving ordinary people as well as famous figures in the war, and speech balloons carrying the children's conversations and comments from other people in the crowded scenes. Appendixes include cameo portraits and brief biographies of significant people, a map showing campaigns and battlefields, information on flags and famous firsts of the war, a glossary, and two brief bibliographies. An imaginative and strongly visual introduction to the Civil War. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: Ghosts of the Civil War (Hardcover)
I read "Ghosts of the Civil War" as I am working my way through Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals," so the idea of being able to go back in time, as it were, to talk to these people when they were alive is appealing to me. Of course, I have been thinking of what could have been said to Abraham Lincoln, George B. McClellan, or anybody else who appears in these books that could have shortened the war and saved hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides. However, in her fascinating book, writer-artist Cheryl Harness sends her young surrogate Lindsey back to the past in the company of Willie Lincoln to find about what the Civil War was really about. The idea is that Lindsey has been dragged by her parents to a Civil War re-enactment (I have been to couple of those in Illinois and at one of them Abraham Lincoln showed up). Lindsey thinks the whole thing is dumb, that there is nothing civilized about a rotten war, and has no idea why the North fought the South. But then she sees a sad little boy who seems lost. He explains that he was just wondering why future folks were playing out the War of the Rebellion. When Lindsey wonders why people in the United States could be so dumb as to war against each other, the boy explains it was because the states where not united at all, and proceeds to show her. The next thing she knows, Lindsey is watching a beardless Abraham Lincoln giving his "House Divided" speech at the state capitol in Springfield, Illinois on June 16, 1858. Harness provides a two-page spread that show the entire country divided into free states, slave states, and U.S. territories. Off to the side a list of key dates on the road to the Civil War are laid out, while Willie explains to Lindsey how the national was like two different countries, with factories in the North and farms in the South, a distinction emphasized by how Harness illustrates what is happening in each state. This sets up the basic approach of the book. Each two-spread spread shows a particular scene, from the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the First Battle of Manassas to Pickett's Charge and the Gettysburg Address. The people shown in the pictures make interesting comments (e.g., the old woman at Lincoln's inauguration who saw George Washington sworn-in 72 years earlier at New York and thinks it would break the first president's heart to see his nation breaking apart), while Willie explains key points and Lindsey responses to what she sees and hears. I was wondering why Harness picked Willie to be the guide rather than Tad, seeing as how the former died in 1862 and the latter did not die until 1871. But there is a point where Lindsey knows what is going to happen next and Willie warns her that things cannot be changed no matter how much they might want, and the conceit does off a chance for father and son to be reunited in the afterlife (it might be a bit much, but I can appreciate the sentiment). The key thing is that at the end Lindsey is able to tell her dad that the Civil War was about a whole lot more than cannons and flags and stuff. The back of the book provides a look at some of the key figures both North and South, paying attention to not only presidents and generals, like Jefferson Davis and Ulysses S. Grant, but also key figures in the slavery issue, such as Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, and some notable women who were battlefield nurses, spies, and tragic figures. This provides a nice cross section of people with less then half of them being military figures. A two-page map shows the major campaigns and battlefield sets, while another page is devoted to the flags of the two sides, a chart explaining how the soldiers were organized, and some of the key firsts that made the Civil War the First Modern War. Finally, there is a Glossary of key terms from "Abolitionist" to "Zouave," and a short Bibliography and list of Recommended Reading surrounded by a Look Around the World in the Time of the Civil War. Ultimately, I am not sure that "Ghosts of the Civil War" works as an introductory book for young readers, and that they really need to know a little something about the subject to get the most out of this interesting volume. Harness' goal is to make the people of the Civil War seem a bit more like real people, and to do this by filling the pages completely with artwork and information. If you start from scratch this onslaught of information and images could be a bit much, but once a young student understand the basics of the Civil War this book will expand their knowledge and be a lot more fun to read than a history textbook. Harness has written similar volumes, "Ghosts of the 20th Century" and "Ghosts of the White House," that take the same approach in presenting a wealth of information to her young readers.
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Ghosts of the Civil War (Harness' Ghost)
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Price: $7.99
Updated on 9-17-2008.
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