war book report

Author Last, First Name. Title of the book. Place of Publication. Company: Date.

Paulsen, Gary. Soldiers Heart. New York, NY. Dell Laurel-Leaf: October 1998.

Reason, Type and Setting: I really like Gary Paulsen and I really like survival books. I really liked reading Hatchet, and Brians Winter. Because I am really liking this author I thought it would be perfect to read soldiers heart when i found out that it was on the war I was researching. The book is a war book. It takes place in the Civil War.

Plot: Basically there is a boy named Charley Goddard. He leaves his family's farm at the age of fifteen to enlist in the first Minnesota Volunteers. He was too young to enlist, like many boys of that time. But, like many boys of that time he lied about his age and said he was eighteen. This is a fictional story but Gary Paulsen makes sure to involve Charley in most of the main battles of the civil war. Charley was extremely lucky to survive by the end. Each battle he is in he nearly escapes death.

Character: Charley. At the beginning of the book Charley is only a fifteen year old boy. He wants to join the army to be part of the adventure. To follow with what everybody else was doing at the time. To become a man. By the end of the story he is nineteen. He has been through a lot by then. He has received multiple bullet injuries by this point. He has seen some pretty horrific things from war. By the end of the story he has what is called, a soldiers heart.

Evaluation:

I definitely liked the novel. It was very interesting and entertaining. It also taught me a lot about the civil war. How nobody really knew what they were fighting for. How brutal it was. How dumb and simple the war was. To simply line up in rows on both sides and just fire. It was a very sad story, this fifteen year old boy goes through some pretty traumatic life changing experiences in a matter of four years.

This book is completely real life. Everything from this story happened for the most part. Not actually this exact story, but many like it. All of the battles actually happened. Paulsen was also very descriptive and informative about each battle. I received a very clear idea of the differences between all the battles.

Had I been in his situation I may have acted differently. During that time if I were fifteen, I probably would have joined the army. I would have liked the adventure and all that. But the difference for me would have been after the first battle. After the first battle I would realize the horrific bloodiness of the war and realize how dangerous it was. After that I would still take part in the war, yet I would be as cautious as possible, also I would get out of fighting whenever possible. I would do this by taking advantage of an injury by becoming hospitalized for as long as possible, something like that.

Author, Context and Trivia:

Gary Paulsen writes a lot of survival books. I have read two about Brian Robeson being a survivor from a plane crash in Canada and another about a boy who lost from his family on the Oregon trail. All of these stories were really good. This book is similar but very different. But I would definetley they were all very good. I would definitely read this author again, he is becoming one of my new favorites.