The Boys' War: Confederate and Union Soldiers Talk About the Civil War

When was the last time a boy could join the army and fight in a war in this country? The Civil War, that's when. At a time when being a teen didn't have the connotations that that age has today, boys left parents and homes and friends, and went off to what they thought would be a grand adventure. Just as Europe's young men would find fifty years later, war came with more drudgery and horror than it did adventure and glory. In both cases as well, the boys quickly were transformed into soldiers and came to see war for what it really is. This account of the boys who fought in the War Between the States uses excerpts from diaries and letters to let us see what those boys actually saw and thought and felt as they fought for their country in show more America's bloodiest and costliest conflict. show less

This was the best Civil War juvinile book I have read, and believe me, I have read many. The author goes into the subject in a way that a child could understand if they needed to read the book for a school project etc.. I found myself hooked into this book on the first sentence. The pictures added alot to the book and I thought the direct quotes from the soilder's diaries was great. This was a great book that even the youngest of children interested in this war could enjoy. There is violence in it, but as always, It can't be a Civil War book if there isn't any.

This book would do well in a 5th grade classroom when doing a lesson on the civil war especially with the vocabulary used. It would offer a challenging read and serve the purpose of sharing information regarding the Civil War. In addition, another use would be when teaching a lesson on point of view. This book offers several first hand accounts and their personal experiences of life in the Civil War.

"The Boys' War" is a thrilling, yet tragic tale about what boys under the age of 18 went through during their time fighting in the civil war. The author has chose multiple primary sources to capture the emotion, attitudes, and reality of what the war did to these adolescents. The photographs show the brutality that occurred during this unfortunate battles.

This book is indescribably steep!! This book took me on an adventure into US History I wasnt prepared for!! It walked me through photos and text describing the Civil War ranks, the enrollment lines. Although the rules say you must be 18 to fight, boys were allowed to be buglers and drummers as young as 12. I read about the boys feelings of potentially getting lost in a unit of 100,000 men fighting another 100,000, standing by watching men die, picking up fighting where the dead left off, and even collecting the bodies of the dead as late as a year later!! I was speechless!! The photos told the story with gruesome detail!! I would use this book cautiously with 7+graders in talks and studies related to my tags.

This is not one of Jim Murphy's best. It is informative and I think that boys from ages 11-14 will find it remarkable, but somehow it didn't quite grab me as much as I hoped it would. I did appreciate the larger size of the book, which allowed me to examine pictures easily.

This piece of historical non-fiction offers students a way to relate to other young people while learning about the nitty gritty of fighting in the Civil War at a young age. Both Confederate and Union boy soldiers are discussed in depth, with black and white photographs and excepts from their personal diaries. This book would be appropriate for fourth through eighth grade, although the reading level is fifth grade. It would be a nice source of primary documents for students who are not feeling engaged during a Civil War lesson but who still need the details and facts (while remaining interested). I would use this during a lesson to link it to a repeating theme in class on the history of children's' rights. The grade level for this book show more is 7.8 and I think that it would be appropriately used in a 7th and 8th grade class. show less