Red Moon at Sharpsburg

Author: Rosemary Wells

Publisher: Penguin Group

Publication Year: 2007

Lexile: 870L (This book is not in the Lexile Book Database. I used the Lexile Analyzer to get this value.)

Most of the readers will be: Middle school girls and some boys.

Reader's Advisory: For a non-fiction book on the Civil War, try You Wouldn't Want to be a Civil War Soldier! A War You'd Rather Not Fight by Thomas M. Ratliff.

Summary: India Moody is a young woman, coming of age in Virginia during the Civil War. Although she comes from a poor family, India is the god-daughter of the well off Geneva Trimble thanks to her father saving the life of Calvin Trimble. When the Civil War starts, India's best friend Julia moves away to Ohio. First the Trimbles's younger sons join the Confederate army, then India's father and India's tutor, Emory Trimble join, too. India witnesses the battlefield at Sharpsburg trying to bring medicine to her father. She sees many other terrible things before the end of the war is in sight, but throughout it all she holds on to her goal of finding her way to Ohio to attend Oberlin College. Juila has written to her that Oberlin accepts women and allows students to work off their tuition. India has heard that the world will be different after the war, and she hopes that means there will be a place for educated women.

My favorite passage:

Then he slaps down a notebook in front of me and takes on a churchy voice. "India, I am a tutor of physical philosophy at the University of Virginia. Until the war ends and school starts I am to be your teacher." he announces to me.
I feel my legs dangling from my chair like a little girl's.
"The following are our subjects." On a slate is written in my mother's hand, Scriptures, household economics, handwriting, declamation.
"We'll start on chapter one of Makey's Moral Behavior for American Girls," Emory says.
On the table next to me is a brass tube with an eyepiece up top, eight inches long. It shines and sits aslant a black basalt stand.
"What's that?" I ask.
"It's called a microscope," says Emory. "I brought it back from the university. Now repeat after me," he says. "'A Godly life is a swift river which runs through the garden of temptation.'"
"A Godly life is a swift river through the garden of temptation," I reel off.
"Which runs through," says Emory.
"What is the microscope for?" I ask.
"You can see tiny bacteria that are invisible to the naked eye," Emory answers. "'A Godly life is a swift river which runs through the garden of temptation."
"Can you show me? Can I look through it?"
"Let's get the prism out. It needs a prism to refract enough light for you to see." He turns the scope around, catches a ray of sunlight in the prism, and inserts a glass slide. "That is hog's blood," he says. (pg 36-37)

What I really think:
This book would be great to accompany a lesson in school about the American Civil War. I have always had a hard time with history myself, yet Wells has certainly drawn me into the story and taught me a great deal throughout her novel. I was especially surprised to read about how poor the medical field was at this time. Fiction books can educate and they can be a great resource for kids who turn their noses up at the text book.