WILL AT THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, 1863

“What would the Rebels want with a place like Gettysburg, Pennsylvania?” wonders 12-year-old Will Edmonds. He’s living in Gettysburg with his mother and three sisters, his father’s working at an Army hospital and his older brother is a soldier in a Southern prison. Will dreams of glory in battle, but instead the battle is coming to him. As Confederate forces begin arriving in Gettysburg, a town of only 2,400 residents, Will befriends a Southern boy named Abel Hoke, and in that friendship war is made personal: The enemy now has a face he knows. For her second installment in the Boys of Wartime series (Daniel at the Siege of Boston, 1776, 2010), Calkhoven draws on the many firsthand accounts of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War and weaves a solid tale of war through the eyes of Will. Dialogue too often reads like history lessons, but readers will come away understanding not only the facts of the battle but the underlying debates over states’ rights and slavery. A fine introduction to a battle that turned the tide of the war. (historical note, children’s roles in the Civil War, list of characters, timeline, glossary, further reading) (Historical fiction. 9-12)