Black Angels - Hardcover

Linda Beatrice Brown lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. This is her first book for young readers.

Grade 7 Up—At the end of the Civil War, three children leave their homes and embark on a journey together. Luke, 11, runs away from his master to try and join up with the Union army. Nine-year-old Daylily was hiding in the woods when her older sister and babies were killed by men she assumes are Yankees. Caswell, the youngest and the only white child, was left to fend for himself when his mother died on the plantation. Their paths converge, and these three unlikely compatriots head to where they think they will be safe. The story itself is somewhat contrived, and the violence these children witness is intense. Daylily's sister is graphically butchered like a hog and all of her babies are murdered as well. Scenes like this are sprinkled throughout the novel whether it is a situation they stumble upon or one that takes place in specific battle scenes. Both Luke and Daylily speak in dialect, as one would expect, but the dialect is not noted with any diacritical marks and is very distracting. Struggling readers will have a particularly difficult time negotiating it. The book ends with the three characters rendezvousing 10 years later, which serves to tie the story up in an unrealistically neat package. Carolyn Reeder's Shades of Gray (S & S, 1989) remains a perfect recommendation for showing the impact of the Civil War on children.—Joan Kindig, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA
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