Read Revolutionary War on Wednesday free for 7 days. £7.99/month after - less than a paperback.
Revolutionary War on Wednesday by Mary Pope Osborne is a history adventure for 7 year olds set on the coldest, darkest night of a war.
Jack and Annie are partway through a job for Morgan. She needs four special kinds of writing to save Camelot. They have found one. This trip is for the second.
They land by a frozen river at dusk, in wool and buckled shoes, with snow starting.
Up the bank there are men round a campfire. Ragged coats. Some of them have their feet wrapped in rags. These are not the soldiers Jack was expecting.
Their captain sends the children home twice. Then he stops, and asks Jack for a favour.
He has written a letter to his own son and daughter. Would Jack take it back with him? Only send it, he says, if you hear that we failed.
That is the moment the book turns from an adventure into something with a lump in its throat.
Your reader will probably spot the commander-in-chief before Jack does, or at least enjoy watching him work it out (the clue is a face he has seen on money).
What it feels like to read is mostly cold and dark and a bit thrilling. Boats being loaded with horses and cannons. Lantern light on ice. Annie getting into places she should not be, as usual, and Jack trailing after her with his notebook.
Facts arrive the way they always do here, in short bursts from the research book, so a child picks up 1776 and redcoats and the Delaware without being taught anything.
A word on the sad parts. Nobody dies on the page, but a soldier hands a child a farewell letter in case he is killed, and the men are plainly hungry, cold and frightened. Jack says outright that he hated the suffering he saw on his last trip.
If your child has questions about war, this one will start a few more. If they are ready for that, it handles it gently and honestly.
If they want to know what happened on the trip Jack keeps mentioning, Civil War on Sunday is in the library. That is where they met Clara Barton, and it is the mission just before this one.
A library hand-picked by an English teacher, delivered through a calm, ad-free app. If your child already loves reading, we keep up.
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