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Across Five Aprils

Irene Hunt

Start date: April 1, 2019

Finish date: April 30, 2019

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May 09, 2020 Manybooks rated it really liked it

Shelves: childrens-literature, war, book-reviews, historical-fiction

So first and foremost, what had made Irene Hunt's 1964 Across Five Aprils (and which won a Newbery Honour designation in 1965) so readable and so relatable, so wonderful for and to me as a personal reading experience is the author's, is Irene Hunt's accurate and historical sense of time and place, is her narrational realism (and which is achieved not only by her detailed and factually based descriptions of events occurring or having occurred but also because to add colour and life, to add a sens So first and foremost, what had made Irene Hunt's 1964 Across Five Aprils (and which won a Newbery Honour designation in 1965) so readable and so relatable, so wonderful for and to me as a personal reading experience is the author's, is Irene Hunt's accurate and historical sense of time and place, is her narrational realism (and which is achieved not only by her detailed and factually based descriptions of events occurring or having occurred but also because to add colour and life, to add a sense of immediacy, Irene Hunt also has her characters speaking vernacular, talking non standard parlance, conversing amongst themselves not in standard written English but in the manner of how the common people would be chatting and that yes indeed and to and for me, this has truly made Across Five Aprils shine much more brightly than if the author, than if Irene Hunt had penned not only her third person narrative descriptions but also her presented personal conversations in standard written English).

But of course, for any good novel, for a decent story, there needs to be a successful combination of both writing style and writing content/themes offered. And yes, with Across Five Aprils, I also totally do much appreciate that Irene Hunt approaches some very problematic and difficult questions that usually and realistically do tend to arise in wartime and especially so, in internal, in civil wars, since especially in the latter type of conflicts, there are not only divisions within one's country and one's communities, but often also within families (both immediate and extended). Therefore and with this in mind, I as a critical and adult reader (but indeed I also would have appreciated this as a child) have absolutely delighted in the fact that in Across Five Aprils, Irene Hunt depicts and presents the US Civil War not ever in my opinion as something even remotely heroic and necessary but as a mostly and utterly tragic, useless and even dangerously ridiculous conflict, as a war that in fact ended up killing more Americans than ANY OTHER war to date.

And yes indeed, to and for me as an ardent pacifist, the decidedly but quietly shown strong anti-war message encountered by readers in Across Five Aprils is therefore totally and utterly to be cheered and to be lauded, albeit that I also realise from reading other online reviews that some also do seem to consider Across Five Aprils to be boring and tedious and to equally be much too intent on supposedly showcasing Irene Hunt's own sentiments against war (but since I am of her mindset and of her opinion with regard to this, I for one and of course totally find Irene Hunt's narrative delightful and absolutely have enjoyed how critical Across Five Aprils is both towards the US Civil War and towards the main movers and shakers of that war, both in the North and in the South). ...more

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Mar 19, 2019 Kelly_Hunsaker_reads ... rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-in-2019, young-adult

I really liked the first few chapters of this book when the author was letting me get to know and connect with all the various members of the family. It was sweet and sympathetic. But once the war began the story went downhill. I wanted to see the affects of the war on the family, but the book was more like a child's class report. It tells the events but doesn't show the results of those facts. ...more

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Apr 15, 2019 Paula Miller rated it liked it

Shelves: jh-mid-school, historical-fiction, newbery, own, audible, 2019-challenge

Across Five Aprils is a historical fiction novel set during the civil war. I love historical fiction and really wanted to love this book, but it just wasn't winning my heart. I enjoyed learning about Jethro's family, community, and the hardships of the war on them, but the last part of the book began to read like a history textbook describing the different battles of the civil war. It was interesting, but I just didn't love it.

Awards: Newbery Honor Book 1965
Recommended for Grades: 4-8
Audience Ra ...more

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