War
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A teenage history buff finds himself trapped in the Civil War
Jake Branford has always felt that he was born 150 years too late. A fourteen-year-old Civil War nut, he's happiest when he's reading soldiers' letters, exploring old battlegrounds, or trying on an ancestor's tattered Union Army cap. Lucky for him, a mysterious film director is in town, working on a Civil War epic, and Jake stumbles onto the secret set.
The film set is like nothing he has ever seen. The musket-fire, explosions, and uniforms are all perfectly accurate. Jake is in heaven—until it all gets a little too real. He's always wanted to fight for the Union—and today he's going to get his chance.
War was selected by the International Reading Association and the Children's Book Council as a 2000 Children's Choice.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Peter Lerangis including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author's personal collection.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Action-packed from first page to last, this contemporary tale of a "deal-gone-wrong" rotates among six New York teenagers, including Cam, the instigator of a plan to sell drugs at a suburban party; Byron, his partner in crime; and Jimmy, who's just looking for a good time. The first stroke of bad fortune occurs when the boys' car crashes into a deer. Presuming Cam to be dead, his companions flee and are eventually separated. From that point on, Byron, Jimmy, and Cam (who survives with only minor injuries) embark on very different adventures, with danger and surprises around nearly every corner. The book's message, which remains hazy until the last few pages when ironies come to light, is overshadowed by bizarre events cat-and-mouse chases, miraculous recoveries, convoluted plot twists, and farfetched confrontations. Lerangis (the Drama Club series) particularly delights in metaphor one character's Long Island accent is "thick as Manischewitz," and the boys' ill-fated car "was a big What's-Wrong-with-This scenario." But while suspenseful, the book comes off as gimmicky, straining too hard to be hip. Both the characters and their motives remain underdeveloped. Ages 14 up.
