Louisa May's Battle

How the Civil War 
Led to Little Women

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by Playing by the book

and joins It's Monday!

What are you reading?

at Teacher Mentor Texts

Walker Books for Young Readers
(Bloomsbury)
(pub. 3.5.2013) 48 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Kathleen Krull

     and Illustrator:  Carlyn Beccia

C haracter: Louisa May Alcott

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "Louisa May Alcott was a proper young lady from a poor but respected New England family. The Alcotts believed that slavery was wrong and even worked as part of the Underground Railroad. So when the Civil War started, Louisa longed to fight for the North. But since she wasn't a man, she did what she could - she volunteered as a war nurse.
       Everything about this experience opened Louisa's eyes to new possibilities: from the long and difficult journey to Washington DC to caring fro the young injured soldiers and witnessing the treatment of the African American staff. Louisa returned from the war a very different person, and these changes led her to develop a new writing style and outlook that ultimately led to her greatest writing triumph, Little Women."

T antalizing taste: 

    "Any spare minute she had, she wrote home, letters full of snap and bite, using an upside-down teakettle as a desk. She chatted about her soldiers - and also about the chaos at the hospital, or the doctor who had trouble treating his patients as human beings...
     Being a war veteran was the key to all that she accomplished: 'My greatest pride is... that I had a very small share in the war which put an end to a great wrong.'"

and something more: I liked the description in the Women in Medicine section of Louisa May's Battle: "Most of the women in medicine were also active in fighting for equal rights for women - including Alcott, who took to signing her letters, 'Yours for reform of all kinds.'"  What a lovely way to sign one's name!

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The Price of Freedom

How One Town Stood Up
To Slavery

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday

hosted today by Shelf-employed

and joins It's Monday!

What are you reading?

at Teacher Mentor Texts

Walker Books for Young Readers (Bloomsbury)

(pub. 1.8.2013) 48 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin

     and Illustrator: Eric Velasquez

C haracter: People in Oberlin, Ohio, on the Underground Railroad

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "John Price escaped from slavery on a wintry night in January 1856, willing to risk everything for a chance at freedom. He was lucky enough to find a new life in the town of Oberlin, Ohio, then home to many abolitionists and former slaves. But when slave hunters snatched him right off the road two years later, it seemed like that new life was over. Still, John risked everything one more time, yelling for help as a student from the local college passed the wagon.
        John thought his plea went unheard, but the college student sounded the alarm. The people of Oberlin - men and women, black and white - found the slave hunters in Wellington, Ohio, and demanded that Price be set free. When those demands were ignored, they - along with some Wellington residents - took matters into their own hands, risking their own lives and freedom in one of the most dramatic slave rescues in American history."

        

T antalizing taste: 

"Within minutes, hundreds of Oberlinians set out for Wellington. Farmers, shopkeepers, and ministers hurried off to rescue John Price. So did Oberlin College professors and students. Young and old, men and women, fathers and sons, black and white, armed and unarmed - people jammed the roads in carts and buggies, on foot, and on horseback."

                       

and something more:  The back matter of The Price of Freedom explains: "To this day Oberlinians are proud that their forebears followed the 'higher law' in slavery days. The Underground Railroad Sculpture stands on the college campus. Oberlin College student Cameron Armstrong created it in 1977 as part of an art-class project. The sculpture honors the role of the college and town in helping John Price and thousands of others escape slavery." The class of 1977 donated  funds to Oberlin College to preserve it as a permanent sculpture. A wonderful tribute to a courageous and commendable group of people!

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