Bradley reveals in
Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers, "Jethro advances to adult status amid the disintegration of the family unit in which he had once felt security." In addition, he has to take up most of the responsibilities for the farm when his father suffers a heart attack. "At the end of the war," Sadler concludes, "Jethro, who has come to a knowledgeable understanding of it through letters and conversations, is taken east to school by Shadrach and Jenny, who are now married."
Hunt depicts the destruction and remaking of the Creighton family as a model of the destruction of the United States during the Civil War and the Reconstruction period. One major character, Jethro's cousin Ed, deserts from the Union Army and writes in desperation to President Lincoln for a pardon. Lincoln responds by offering to forgive all the deserters in Ed's party. "This story nobly emphasizes the futility of aggression," writes John Gillespie and Diana Lembo in Juniorplots. "The American Civil War with its drama is expertly presented through the lives of an ordinary family." "Hunt's research of historical details is impeccable," declares Bradley, "and her use of her grandfather's memories of his childhood during the war gives the reader a sense of great intimacy with the lives of the characters." Hunt has, according to a reviewer for Booklist and Subscription Books Bulletin, "in an uncommonly fine narrative, created living characters and vividly reconstructed a crucial period of history." "It is withal an intriguing and beautifully written book," states New York Times Book Review contributor John K.
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