Through letters and conversations, the characters in
Across Five Aprils reflect on the war, its effects, and the peace that will follow. In the development of the main characters, Hunt offers insight into the varying opinions and concerns people had about the war and its objective.
The novel has also been praised for its balanced treatment of the war: Hunt clearly shows that both the North and the South, according to Masha Kabakow Rudman in Children's Literature: An Issues Approach, had "their villains as well as their heroes." The author examines the underlying causes of the war, the perceptions each side held of the other's motives, and the particular tensions that existed in border states, that is, neighboring states that were on opposite sides of the conflict. Illinois, a free state, was populated by people who originally came from the neighboring states of Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee, and who often still had family in these states. Although Illinois supported the Union cause, the southern region of the state had residents whose sympathies lay with the South.
Biography - Irene Hunt
Irene Hunt was born in 1907 in Pontiac, Illinois, and as a young child her family moved to Newton, Illinois.
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