Eighth Grade Civil War
Independent Book Project: Book Choices
Book Due Date: Monday, October 25, 2010
Following is a list containing books to choose from for the Civil War Independent Book Project. Part of the assignment is for you to get your own copy of the book you select from the library, bookstore or online. For the books we do not have samples of in the classroom, you may go online to Amazon.com to find out more about the book. After typing the author and the title into the book search, click on the highlighted words “See Inside this Book” (usually under a picture of the book). You will then be presented with options, and you can read the back cover or inside flap and view a portion of the text to check the whether the reading level is right for you or not. You will have approximately 4 weeks to read the book.
Beatty, Patricia. Jayhawker.
In the early years of the Civil War, teenage Kansas farm boy Lije Tulley becomes a Jayhawker, an abolitionist raider freeing slaves from the neighboring state of Missouri, and then goes undercover there as a spy.
Doctorow, E.L. The March.
The march in question is that of General William Tecumseh Sherman and his Union soldiers as they slash and burn their way through Georgia and the Carolinas, and the "march to freedom" as liberated slaves fall in step with the liberating army. But it is also, given the poetic depth of Doctorow's vision, the great march of time and of humanity in all its cruelty and glory.
Elliot, L.M. Annie Between the States.
As Virginia shuttles between Union and Confederate control, Annie witnesses "revolting horrors" in her own backyard. She is initially convinced that her side of the battle is the right one--Virginia fights for states' rights, not for slavery. But her certainty deteriorates as the war divides her family both physically and ideologically, and as she gradually loses her heart to an occupying Union soldier.
Fleischman, Paul. Bull Run.
Northerners, Southerners, generals, couriers, dreaming boys, and worried sisters describe the glory, the horror, the thrill, and the disillusionment of the first battle of the Civil War.
Frazier, Charles. Cold Mountain.
A Confederate soldier's trek brings him into intimate and sometimes lethal converse with slaves and marauders, bounty hunters and witches, both helpful and malign, as he makes his way to his home to his true love in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Hicks, Robert. The Widow of the South.
Carrie McGavock witnessed the Battle of Franklin in Tennessee, on a day in 1864 when 9,000 soldiers were slaughtered, the vast majority of them Confederate. Carrie, the central character in this mesmerizing novel, was an actual historical figure. Her farm was close by the scene of the battle, and her house was commandeered as a makeshift hospital. And what Carrie the fictional character does after the battle, the actual Carrie did in real life. When more than 1,000 Confederate bodies buried in a neighboring field were threatened with desecration, she and her husband moved them to their own land and organized the only private Confederate cemetery.
Jiles, Paulette. Enemy Women.
Set in the Missouri Ozarks during the Civil War, Jiles's story focuses on the trying times of 18-year-old heroine Adair Colley. When a group of renegade Union militiamen attacks the Colley home, stealing family possessions, burning everything down, and taking away her father--an apolitical judge--Adair gathers the remnants of her clothes and mounts a rescue effort.
Keith, Harold. Rifles for Watie.
A Newbery Award Winner. Jeff Bussey, a young Union volunteer, is sent to spy on Confederate Cherokeeraiders. One of Phil Kassen's favorites.
Mrazek, Robert. Stonewall’s Gold: A Novel of the Civil War.
The discovery of a long-guarded secret sends young Jamie Lockhart on the adventure of his life. Ultimately, the limits of his courage and endurance are tested during the final desperate months of the Civil War.
McCaig, Donald. Jacob’s Ladder.
The story of Duncan Gatewood, seventeen and heir to the Gatewood Plantation in Virginia. Duncan falls in love with Maggie, a mulatto slave, who bears him a son, Jacob. Maggie and Jacob are sold south, and his irate father packs off Duncan to the Virginia Military Institute. As a cadet, Duncan guards the gallows of John Brown; as a man he will fight for Robert E. Lee and the South. Another Gatewood slave, Jesse--whose love for Maggie is unrequited--escapes to freedom and enlists in Mr. Lincoln's army; in time he will confront his former masters (a very long book!).
Peck, Richard. The River Between Us.
During the early days of the Civil War, the Pruitt family takes in two mysterious young ladies who have fled New Orleans to come north to Illinois.
Reeder, Carolyn. Shades of Gray.
At the end of the Civil War, twelve-year-old Will, having lost all his immediate family, reluctantly leaves his city home to live in the Virginia countryside with his aunt and the uncle he considers a "traitor" because he refused to take part in the war.
Reit, Seymour. Behind Rebel Lines: The Incredible Story of Emma Edmonds,
Civil War Spy.
Combining U.S. Army records and files from the National Archives, Reit has reconstructed the story of an incredible woman who joined the Yankee army disguised as a man.
Rinaldi, Ann. The Last Silk Dress.
Fourteen-year-old Susan Chilmark wants to do something to support the Confederacy during the Civil War. She decides to collect silk dresses to create a huge hot-air balloon to spy on the enemy. But at the same time, Susan discovers unsettling family secrets, deals with the death of her father, and falls in love with a Yankee.
Rinaldi, Ann. The Girl in Blue.
To escape an abusive father and an arranged marriage, fourteen-year-old Sarah, dressed as a boy, leaves her Michigan home to enlist in the Union Army, and becomes a soldier on the battlefields of Virginia as well as a Union spy working in the house of Confederate sympathizer Rose O'Neal Greenhow in Washington, D.C.
Shaara, Michael. Killer Angels.
Winner of the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation's history, two armies fought for two dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life. Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Shattered futures, forgotten innocence, and crippled beauty were also the casualties of war.
Shaara, Jeff. Gods and Generals.
"The battle of Gettysburg featured a cast of characters dramatically and poignantly portrayed in Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels. This new novel by his son Jeff Shaara describes the interconnected paths that brought these men together at this crossroads of our history. Readers of The Killer Angels won't want to miss Gods and Generals."
Wells, Rosemary. Red Moon at Sharpsburg.
Even though the odds are against her and the Civil War has ruined her home and given her a view of the darker side of humanity, thirteen-year-old India Moody continues to aspire to become a scientist and attend Oberlin College.
A note about Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: We are not including this on our list because there are so many books on this topic to choose from that are actually richer in theme and historical detail that dropping this one made sense. In addition, it is a book you will no doubt encounter again in high school or college.