 | This book was amazing! May 22, 2010 |
| I love how Irene Hunt took the knowledge provided by her grandfather and put it together in this phonominal book. The story of how much the Creighton family went through and overcame through the Civil War is a great insite of what life was like during the Civil War. I would deffinately suggest this book to readers who love books about U.S history |
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 | What about religion? Jul 22, 2009 |
| A good book to show the effects of The Civil War on a family. BUT it completely ignores the part that preachers had in inflaming the emotions of ignorant pioneers and sending them off to fight a war that was not so noble as they had been lead to believe. |
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| Pretty hard reading for a young person's book Apr 15, 2009 |
What happened on the home front when all the young men left to go to war.
This novel is about a boy growing up in a farming community
in the north bordering a southern state whose relatives
on his mother's side were southern.
He follows the battles in the war as he struggles to get the crops in.
The point that northern people looked down on the farmer's dialect is make.
I enjoyed the historical perspective of the novel,
but I found the prose hard going at times as a matter of written style. |
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 | A poorly developed novel that jumps around too much Apr 9, 2009 |
| The last time I read Across Five Aprils was in 8th grade. What I remember the most about the book was the coverage of the events during the Civil War and a little bit of everything else. Also, I do remember that the book was confusing to follow at times. Having read the book again now, much of what I thought still holds up true. What is worse is that I now feel Across Five Aprils is a mess of a novel. Irene Hunt jumps around too much, providing a paucity of character development. Some of the characters are introduced, and then the author forgets about them. As the book claims to be about Jethro Creighton, Across Five Aprils slowly makes a transition from him being the central focus to the events of Civil War. And then the author ultimately lets the war to take over, leaving out the Creighton family and friends. At the same time, I am thinking, "Is Across Five Aprils supposed to be about the boy who lived through the Civil War or what?" Irene Hunt also fails to expand the details at a considerable length, causing gaps in description of the action, feeling, and incident. Whenever Irene Hunt brings up the battles of the Civil War, she gives a very, very superficial account of them, only letting a hand out on a life preserver by describing the kind of character the famous men were and what kind of a battle was it in terms of blood. While she lays out the events of the Civil War, I felt wholly unabsorbed due to the lack of Fear and Loathing '72: On Campaign Trial technique of mixing self and the events of the campaign that were happening at the same time. When I read that Hunter Thompson's book, I was simultaneously absorbing two sides of the story whereas in Across Five Aprils, Irene Hunt failed to provide the same treatment for me. All in all, Across Five Aprils is such a poorly developed novel. |
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| An Excellent Read-aloud for the Family. Mar 20, 2009 |
| I read this book aloud to my five children aged 7-16. We all loved this book and couldn't bear to stop at any chapter. This book provided excellent insight to both the North and South during the Civil War. I cannot imagine how anyone could rate this story low. We laughed, cried, and cheered throughout the whole thing. I HIGHLY recommend this book. |
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