Soldier Song: A True Story of the Civil War - Hardcover

Debbie Levy is the award-winning author of nonfiction and fiction books for young people, including New York Times best-selling I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark, winner of the 2017 Sydney Taylor Book Award and 2016 National Jewish Book Award; and We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song, a 2014 Jane Addams Award Honor Book and Bank Street College Best Book. She also wrote The Year of Goodbyes, a 2010 Sydney Taylor Honor Book and Kirkus Reviews Best Book. Debbie is a former lawyer and newspaper editor, and lives in Maryland with her husband. They have two grown sons. www.debbielevybooks.com.

Gilbert Ford has lived half his life in The South and half his life in The North. He has illustrated covers for many books for young readers, such as Three Times Lucky and Mr. Lemoncello's Library, and is the illustrator for The Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosch, as well as a number of picture books, including the award-winning Mr. Ferris and His Wheel. Gilbert currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Visit him online at gilbertford.com.

Gr 4–6—Levy (We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song) once again combines music and history, this time penning a sophisticated picture book that presents a moment in the Civil War through the framework of soldiers' songs. An introductory note places students within the context of the Civil War, but the bulk of the story revolves around the Battle of Fredericksburg. While stuck at an impasse on opposite sides of a river after an unexpected Rebel victory, recovering soldiers marked their days with musical military rituals and spent their nights trading opposing patriotic songs that they "fired back and forth like musical cannonballs." This engaging and descriptive narrative is interspersed with first-person soldiers' accounts. The culmination of the tale is when one side began to play "Home Sweet Home" and the other side joined in, resulting in a night of mutual celebration. Through this event, soldiers were revealed to one another, and thus to readers, as entirely human; "the enemy was also a son, a brother, a husband," to the point where the song was forbidden. Ford (The Wonderful Thing That Came from a Spring) illustrates this heartfelt account with deep colors and silhouetted cutouts. The warmth and explosiveness of music are represented by swirling orange and red lines, along with the actual notations of many of the songs. Ford does not shy away from the brutality of war but avoids gruesomeness with the muted palette and stylized art. The unifying point in time is depicted in a wordless moonlit spread, with layered shades of purple, blue, and green. Concluding with extensive back matter, Levy and Ford leave readers satisfied. VERDICT An up-close look at a moment in U.S. history and the reality, and unexpected humanity, of war; for sophisticated readers.—Clara Hendricks, Cambridge Public Library, MA