How I Found the Strong

April 12, 2004
This often gripping first novel set during the Civil War adopts the perspective of a 10-year-old boy who lives on a small farm in rural Mississippi. As the story opens, Frank, nicknamed Shanks "on account of my skinny legs," vies unsuccessfully for his father's attention and love, believing that Pa prefers even their lone slave, Buck, to him, and envying his 14-year-old brother, Henry, who is about to go off to war with Pa. After their departure, however, Frank's views about the glory of battle and about Southern ideologies change, as he and his family battle hunger and as his relationship with Buck strengthens. Morally ambiguous actions challenge Frank: Grampa leaves the struggling family to pursue personal freedom in Texas; a fugitive Confederate Army deserter sentenced to death delivers Ma's baby. Some feats seem a bit superhuman, such as Frank's heroic save of his father near the Strong River, but McMullan sketches these characters memorably and tempers the drama with wry humor, such as Frank's attempt to fashion his own shoes and go courting. A sobering view of the Civil War and a heartening look at a boy's coming of age. Ages 10-14.

April 1, 2004
Gr 5-8-Ten-year-old Shanks's father and brother march off to war, leaving him behind with his grandparents, pregnant mother, and the family slave, Buck. Eventually, the war comes closer to home, and the wounded are treated in an ill-kempt school. Shanks gradually realizes that Buck is very much a human being with the same feelings, strengths, and weaknesses as other people. When it is time for Ma to give birth, a deserter who is passing through delivers the baby, and Shanks changes his mind about what cowardice is. Each passing season draws him closer to manhood and further away from the belief that slavery is right. Finally, Pa returns home, and the boy convinces him that Buck deserves freedom. They help him escape but are caught in a nightmarish battle. Shanks manages to get his wounded father to safety; because of his courage, he is finally called by his given name, Frank. Based on a family manuscript, this novel is well researched and includes many details about life in Civil War Mississippi. There are several realistic and harrowing scenes, as men undergo amputations and a young slave is brutally hung from a tree. An epilogue tells about Frank's later years. Although this coming-of-age story contains many familiar elements, the first-person narrative lends it immediacy.-Kathryn Kosiorek, Cuyahoga County Public Library, Brooklyn, OH

Copyright 2004 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2004
Gr. 5-9. Set in Mississippi during the Civil War, this first novel is one of the best of the many recent books about young people in the South caught up in the bloody conflict around them. At 11, Frank wishes he were old enough to join his father and older brother in the Confederate army. Instead he's stuck at home with Ma, his grandparents, and the family slave, Buck. McMullan draws on family stories and on a relative's war diary, and Frank's spare, first-person narrative brings close the battlefield slaughter he witnesses ("a pile of arms and legs, legs that still have socks and shoes on"), and always, the virulent racism (including the neighbors' use of the " n-"word and the town's lynching of a young teen). The violence isn't sensationalized; the characters are drawn with quiet truth, always from the young white kid's viewpoint; and there's no sentimentality. It's a bit far-fetched that Frank finds his manhood when he saves Pa's life in a battle, but in what is the true heartfelt climax, Frank changes Pa and makes him help Buck escape north.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)