Bull Run by Paul Fleischman

Bull Run depicts a glimpse into the lives of men and women in the first battle of the Civil War. Each account varies between Northerners and Southerners, detailing their individual feelings ranging from excitement, anger, sadness, and uncertainty of what the future is to hold. The individual story allows for each character to claim his or her position in the war, while describing how their lives are affected by the actions taken through the chain of events before and after the battle at Bull Run. Through the use of multiple perspectives, the historical event of Bull Run comes to life in each chapter. Dramatic scenes filled with descriptive details and imagery allow readers to closely follow each perspective of every day men and women, some soldiers, leaders, children, mothers, or observers in a war divided amongst the North and the South. Fleischman also alternates between each account between Northeners and Southerners, while allowing the reader to follow the action on either side. The maps illustrated in the few pages before the beginning of the story allow for the reader to also follow the action of the soldiers of both the Union and Conferederate armies. As most are fictional characters with the exception of General McDowell, the story of Bull Run would be an engaging and appropriate introductory piece of literature to complement the teaching of the Civil War in the middle school or high school level.

As Fleischman states at the end of the book, Bull Run can be used in class as a Readers Theatre, while allowing students to closely examine each of the roles and deciding on how to best effectively express each of their accounts based on what is happening in the story. This also allows for students to think critically about their character's involvement and take their own stance about what occurred at Bull Run. A review by Children's Literature states, "This unforgettable lesson encourages youngsters to approach a situation with the knowledge that there are more than two sides to each story; there are as many accounts as there are witnesses. This book will provide insight as well as fine material for student drama."

My only setback in this story was that I found myself rereading frequently throughout the story as Fleischman jumped back and forth in action from character to character. On my post it, I wrote down each character's names and jotted a few notes beside it - N for Northerner, S for Southerner, and a small detail that could help me recall what had last happened. I could see this being frustrating to children as they read the story, as I felt lost at times because by the time you get back to a certain character, the previous events were easily forgotten. If completing this in a guided reading setting, I would create a chart of the characters and make notes next to each of the names in order for us to recall what happened previously in the story. I found many kids who reviewed this book to be confused by this fluctuation in characters and this being a repeated opinion amongst many of them. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/116950.Bull_Run

When beginning the story, I thought Fleischman's writing style would be similar to how it was represented in Seedfolks and how each character had one chapter each; however, Bull Run was deceptively different. It just goes to show that Fleischman's writing style is not a one size fits all approach; perhaps this is why he is is such an outstanding children's author!