Stonewall Jackson

School Library Journal

Gr 7-12 Carpenter turns the exciting lives of two ``Mighty Warriors'' into boring, dull, bland recitations. Both Patton and Jackson suffer from wordiness, poor organization, awkward transitions, and generally clumsy writing. Both contain misspellings, incorrect punctuation, internal inconsistencies, and major factual errors. Both suffer from inadequate background informationin Patton, World Wars I and II seem to spring out of nowhere, while in Jackson, the phrase ``Civil War'' is mentioned only in three photo captions, and the coverage of slavery is totally unsatisfactory. In Jackson, Carpenter relies on an armload of contemporary quotations to tell the story; none is adequately synthesized into the text, and the result is page after page of meandering, convoluted sentences, rife with sentimentality and unusual expressions. Carpenter does a slightly better job in Patton, but fails to convey a real sense of the man and repeatedly uses unfamiliar terms and references without definition. He also appends six pages of direct quotes from Patton, cited without explanatory information on when, where, why, and to whom they were made, thus making many incomprehensible. Fortunately, superior biographies of both men are in print. Devaney's ``Blood and Guts'' (Messner, 1982) is not an outstanding book but is better organized, more interesting, and far easier to read than Carpenter's volume, and does a finer job of placing things in context. Fritz' Stonewall (Putnam, 1979) is a superb, fascinating, skillfully written biography that conveys a true empathy for an understanding of Thomas ``Stonewall'' Jackson. Ann W. Moore, Lane Road Library, Columbus