Soldier’s Heart by Gary Paulsen

I can’t believe I waited so long to read Soldier’s Heart (Laurel Leaf Books 1998) by Gary Paulsen.  I heard all the buzz when it first came out, but just never got around to it.  Now some of my students chose to read this one for literature circles, so I figured I’d better get with it.  I’m glad I did.  Soldier’s Heart lived up to the good reviews that came with it.

As the Civil War begins, Charley Goddard is just fifteen, but he feels that he is a man and wants to act like a man.  That means he signs up for the Minnesota volunteer regiment even though he’s not sure what the war is all about or what war is.  At first, he waits and practices and waits some more.  Eventually he boards a train to head south and take on the rebels.  Charley is surprised by what he sees from the girls giving him baked goods (he’s sure he falls in love more than once) to the abject poverty of poor farms.

Nothing, though, could prepare Charley or the rest of the volunteers for the horror they found at Bull Run–the sounds of bullets and screams, the smoke from rifles and cannons, the stench of blood and death.  After that first day, Charley is sure that he could never face battle again, but he does through battle after battle until Gettysburg.  Charley learns to endure the tedium of camp life and the horror of battle, but it changes him in ways that we are still struggling to understand.

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