Moon Over Tennessee: A Boy's Civil War Journal

by Craig Crist-Evans, Bonnie Christensen (Illustrator)

Overview

A moving personal narrative in the form of a journal, this powerful poem tells the story of one boy’s journey into war—and the horrible climax at Gettysburg.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780618311071
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/16/2003
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	64
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Lexile:	920L (what's this?)
Age Range:	10 - 12 Years

About the Author

Craig Crist-Evans's first book, MOON OVER TENNESSEE, won the prestigious International Reading Association/Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award. The sequel, The Shadow of My Father's Hand, is currently appearing in newspapers around the country through Breakfast Serials, a nationally syndicated serial story publisher. Crist-Evans has published poetry in such journals as Artful Dodge, The Paris Review, The Prague Review, Cimmaron Review, The Kansas Quarterly, and Passages North, and has received four Pushcart Nominations. Crist-Evans teaches English and directs the Writing Center at Mercersburg Academy..

Editorial Reviews

"Exquisite, somber black-and-white woodcut illustrations accompany the poems; the images are often as lyrical as the text." Kirkus Reviews with Pointers

In free verse diary entries, Crist-Evans captures a 13-year-old boy's vision of the Civil War. The lyrical collage of men and war invites comparison with Gary Paulsen's Soldier's Heart (Booklist's Top of the List choice for 1998), and it holds its own. It is less graphic but equally moody and reflective. Because the narrator works in camp and away from the front lines, the violence is seen only at a distance: "Down by the creek the wounded lie in rows / like pine logs at the mill in Silver Bluff".... An evocative book, written with language so vibrant it begs to be read aloud.

May 15, 1999 Booklist, ALA —

From the Publisher

"I rode from Gettysburg to Tennessee and I saw the country weeping," says the unnamed 13-year-old narrator to his mother after the spring and summer of 1863, during the Civil War. Told through free-verse stanzas in diary format, the novel communicates the boy's strong love of his Tennessee farm: "I've lived here long as I remember,/ carved into this family like my daddy's name/ cut deep into the oak that stands/ there at the corner of the field." The narrator explains that he's going off to war "not because my daddy thinks the South should fight against the North but we've been so long a piece of Tennessee." Some readers may think the book's disavowal of slavery as a decisive factor in the war teeters close to revisionist history, but Crist-Evans supports the main characters' stance throughout the text; the narrator's best friend is a free African-American, and the father shares their meager rations with an escaping slave family on their journey. The boy himself does not engage in combat, but cares for his father's horse until the battle at Gettysburg, which exacts a devastating personal price. Christensen's (An Edible Alphabet) haunting black-and-white woodcuts capture a broad emotional range. A casual scene of soldiers and horses resting under a tree on their way to battle offers a marked contrast to a searing image of men with lanterns searching for bodies on the abandoned battlefield. A map of the route and a concise afterword provide a historical context for this personal take on a monumental event. Ages 8-up. (May) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 7 Up-Written in free verse, this first-person narrative tells the story of a 13-year-old Tennessee farm boy who accompanies his father to join the Confederate army in the spring of 1863. The boy cares for the horses and helps with the camp responsibilities until his father's death at the Battle of Gettysburg. This book is an evocative work, capturing the voice of innocence and hinting at the horrors of war. However, very little is made of the father-son relationship or the drama of their journey. There are a number of ripe elements that come into play, but they are dropped almost as soon as they are introduced. Still, though much of the writing is too loose and merely adequate, this book has moments of real poetry, as when the boy, watching the corpsmen lift the bodies of the dead, sees their lanterns "bob like boats," or when a yellow dog opens its wide mouth in a "fiery yawn." Beautifully illustrated with wood engravings, this selection might be good for introducing readers to poetry and thinking about history, but if you want a really good narrative poem about the Civil War, look to Andrew Hudgins's After the Lost War (Houghton, 1989).-Herman Sutter, Saint Pius X High School, Houston, TX Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

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