ALL THEIR NAMES WERE COURAGE

An epistolary tale offers young readers insight into life during the Civil War. Sallie, 11, loves horses, and her best friend Isaac loves to draw. So, they decide to make a book, using letters from Civil War generals telling about their horses and featuring Isaac’s illustrations. Sallie begins writing to the generals and her brother William, in the Union army, assures her in one of his revealing letters from the front that the generals will write as a diversion, to keep from going mad. Sure enough, Sallie and Isaac begin receiving responses. General Robert E. Lee writes about Traveller, Stonewall Jackson about Little Sorrel, and several other generals respond, too. By story’s end, their book about horses is done, Sallie has grown up, and William has returned home. The original premise works well, telling an appealing story with plenty of details about farm life, war, and the place of horses in the Civil War era. (note to readers, afterword) (Fiction. 7-11)