School Library Journal
Gr 6-8-This historical novel introduces a complex aspect of the American Civil War seldom dealt with in fiction for young people. The main characters are residents of Missouri, a border state. They are slave-holding secessionists but have friends and neighbors who are Union sympathizers. Some of these same neighbors also own slaves. Reeves, the narrator, is a bright 15 year old who records all that is happening around her. Her beloved father is killed in an early battle and her family's home is commandeered as a residence for a Union captain and his mean-spirited wife. Amid all of the turmoil, the household slaves remain stoic yet apparently loyal. The author does a good job of describing the complexities of the relationships among Union loyalists, secessionists, slaves, and slave owners who worked side by side even as the war raged around them. Reeves's sympathies lie clearly on the side of freeing their slaves. Still, she has no sympathy for the Jayhawkers, who are portrayed here as lawless ruffians. The characterizations are believable if a bit overdone at times. The captain's wife has no redeeming features; she serves the plot by giving readers a villainous character to despise. The slaves are not well developed, perhaps because they are seen always from Reeves's perspective. Still, this is a well-researched historical novel that should hold readers' attention. Pair it with Patricia Beatty's Jayhawker Morrow, 1991, which is set in the same area but gives a sympathetic view of the Jayhawkers and a less friendly portrayal of the Confederates and slave owners.-Bruce Anne Shook, Mendenhall Middle School, Greensboro, NC
Kirkus Reviews
Readers accustomed to thinking of all wars in absolute terms will find a bracingly different perspective in Hill's Civil War novel of conflicting loyalties and fine lines. It seems as if all of Margaret Reeves O'Neill's life has been a border war. Her state, Missouri, is hotly contested during the Civil War. She is on the brink of womanhood, and torn between her father, who fights and dies for the Confederacy, and the Union soldier, Percival Wilder, who has won her affection. Her kind father, who had promised to free their slaves at his death, has amended his will, and his daughter, known as Reeves, feels betrayed. When the family is forced to board Union General Brown and his wife, a published poetess, Reeves is betrayed again; the odious Mrs. Brown steals Reeves's private writings and publishes them as her own. Some aspects of the story are unconvincing: Despite the brutal realities of the war, which Reeves witnesses, and which claim both her father and Percival, the day-to-day gentility of her home life is barely disturbed. Reeves's father has taught his slaves to read, and one of them has literary discussions with Reeves; such discussions were possible, of course, but Hill doesn't persuade readers that they were. Far from exhibiting the usual partisan hatred, women on both sides of the conflict get together to socialize and knit socks for the soldiers, most of whom are gallant gentlemen. Nevertheless, this is an engrossing novel, thoroughly researched, despite the modern sensibility that pervades it. (chronology, bibliography) (Fiction. 12-14)
