Across Five Aprils

This past year I read Across Five Aprils with seventh-grade language arts students. I had been told that most would not like it, so I was pleasantly surprised when many ended up doing so. I think it was learning about what life was like for rural families in the mid-nineteenth century that sucked them in. Marriage at 14, 15, or 16; buying tobacco at age 9; taking on adult responsibilities as a 9-13 year-old; and the effects of war on those who fight it made especially big impressions. We had some wonderful discussions about these subjects and many others. Hunt’s use of information from her grandfather who turned nine when the war started made them wonder which plot elements were fact and which plot elements were fiction. I was able to use the Civil War elements to prep them for the Civil War unit in their social studies class.

I have read a number of reviews discussing the use of dialect in the book and the reading difficulty dialect creates. I would like to remind readers with this complaint that dialects are spelled as they are pronounced. I think our problems with them are that our brains are in autopilot and want to correct the words to Standard English. I used the dialect as an opportunity to teach the importance of learning to write and speak in Standard English. Dialect was also a valuable empathy building opportunity because I was able to point out that reading it was kind of like learning another language and if they were having difficulty reading English dialect, now they could imagine the difficulty others have learning to speak English as a second language.

I highly recommend this book.

Ever heard of the adage "show, don't tell?" Irene Hunt hasn't. This book is written like it was designed to trick kids into learning about the civil. Jethro, the main character, is 9 when the book starts and watches as his family members leave for war, 3 for the Union Army (plus is favorite school teacher) and one for the Confederate Army (because it's important to remember that the Civil War was a fight between brothers and what better way than to make that literal?). From then on, the story takes place primarily by letter and summaries of newspaper articles running down through the lists of battles, the various generals and the opinions of random townspeople.

It is so freaking boring. Why not concentrate on domestic life if we're going to follow a 9 year old? The difficulties of keeping a farm running with all the grown men gone? Did the family get poorer since they were subsistence farmers? I have no idea; the book didn't tell me. It only mentioned how Jethro had to do a man's work at age 10 because his dad had a heart attack.

The author also constantly references How HIstory Will View Things and How Jethro Will Look Back. She doens't seem to have a clear grasp of point of view. It seems to start off with third person limited, but keeps going to third person omniscient to let us know how everyone thinks of the civil war today instead of how a 9 year old would have viewed it then. The 9-13 year old main character doesn't even really seem like a child, but an adult shoved into a child's body for convenience. How did this win a Newberry Award?

The book was excellent for an adult but my 11 year old was not interested in Civil War so it was difficult to keep him reading.

Twelve year old found the language difficult to follow, so we read the book and listened in tandem with the audio book. Its a very good story if studying the Civil War time period.

This book was required reading in graduate class on teaching literature several years ago. Reading it taught me how entertaining and meaningful literature for young readers can be. It is a masterpiece. It is particularly relevant during a time of social division and prejudice. It is he story of what it means to be an American.

I am reading this book for school and I am shocked that this qualified as a book. The words are confusing and I know when they were writing this they wanted to have the characters speak old English but it was taken to far. Even though I did not purchase this book I will advise you not to read this unless forced to.

What I liked most about this Newbery Honor Book, published in 1966, was that it is based on the life of the author's grandfather. Jethro Creighton, growing up on a farm in southern Illinois, is a boy of nine in 1861 at the outbreak of the Civil War. Four men from his family go off to fight and he alone is left to help his father, mother and older sister. He does a lot of growing up in four years.

The opening of the book was a little confusing as I was introduced to the whole Creighton clan (a large family) in a matter of a few pages, and the POV jumps around before the story finally settling down to mostly being seen through Jethro's eyes. Towards the end, the story is more about the war and the battles fought than about Jethro and his family and it lagged a bit for me. Still, I appreciated the history contain in the novel.

There are moments of real heartbreak and terror, moments of hope. With the surrender at Appomattox and the assassination of Lincoln, the end of the war was both joyful and horribly sad and Across Five Aprils reflects that confused state the nation was in.

This little book is beautifully written and contains useful historical information. I have bought numerous copies over recent years for my grandchildren. It contains many good lessons for us all.

Yes, my grandson enjoyed it as much as his daddy did years ago?

This book had something sticky and disgusting all over the cover and pages. I literally took it out of the package and put it in the trash, that's how disgusting it was!!!! Nasty. What a waste of money and time.