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Civil War on Sunday sends Mary Pope Osborne's Jack and Annie into a field hospital in the middle of a war, and it asks a lot more of 7 year olds than its size suggests.
Jack and Annie find a note from Morgan le Fay in the tree house. Camelot is in trouble. To help, they have to collect four kinds of writing, and the first one is something to follow.
The book waiting for them has a peaceful field on the cover. It is called The Civil War. Jack thinks war is sort of cool. Annie does not agree. Then they land in the field, and within a page the argument is settled for him.
Wounded soldiers come out of the woods. Torn blue uniforms, a bloody arm, a bandaged head, men helping each other along. Beyond the field is a hillside of white tents, which turns out to be a field hospital.
A nurse hands Annie a list of things that help. Be cheerful. Lessen sorrow and give hope. Be brave. Put aside your own feelings. Don't give up.
That list is the writing they came for. Jack wants to leave the second he has it. Annie will not go while there are men in the tents who have had no food or water.
So they stay, and Jack has to do the thing he is dreading. He hands out cups of water without looking anyone in the face. Then an elderly man thanks him, and Jack looks up, and the conversation that follows is the heart of the book.
Later they ride out with Clara Barton, a real nurse who drove her wagon towards the guns. Cannon shells land close enough that they have to crouch in the seat. They pick up a Confederate boy as well as Union men, because Clara stops for whoever is hurt.
The men in one tent are all escaped slaves, and one of them tells Jack that his wife and children were sold years ago and he will never see them again. There is a drummer boy about Jack's age who wants to go back to the fighting, and the book does not promise you that he will be all right. Clara says out loud that every flash on the horizon may be someone's whole life ending.
None of that is gory. It is just sad, and honestly so. A child who is already anxious about war or about families being separated may find it heavy going, and it is a much quieter book than the cover suggests. A child who asks questions about history will get real answers here.
Jack and Annie meet the same war again, from the other end, when they go looking for Abe Lincoln at last!
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