Sarah's Ground

May 1, 2004
Gr 5-8-This Civil War tale is based on a true story. Eighteen-year-old Sarah Tracy, a Yankee from Troy, NY, is anxious to escape her family's matchmaking schemes. In 1861, when she hears of an opportunity for employment at Mount Vernon, she jumps at the chance to live and work there. Soon Miss Cunningham, head of the Association that purchased the property from the Washington family, is called home to South Carolina, and the teen is left in the company of the servants-and Mr. Upton Herbert, an eligible bachelor who is the plantation's superintendent. While refurbishing the estate, the two must confront many challenges in seeing it through the war, from privations to threats from the armies. Of course, adversity unites them. This gently told story shows how war impacts noncombatants; it is sure to be popular with Rinaldi fans and lovers of historical fiction.-Elizabeth M. Reardon, McCallie School, Chattanooga, TN

Copyright 2004 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2004
Gr. 6-9. Like Rinaldi's " In My Father's House" (1993), this historical novel is set in Virginia during the Civil War and loosely based on a true story. The setting is not a battlefield but a place revered by both the Union and the Confederacy, Mount Vernon. Just before the war breaks out, narrator Sarah Tracy, an 18-year-old from Troy, New York, accepts a position as caretaker at Mount Vernon. The determined, if inexperienced, Sarah faces a series of threats to the house, to Washington's tomb, and to her own reputation and security. From her encounters with neighbors and soldiers and from the curiously anticlimactic scene in which the Mount Vernon slaves are freed, Sarah learns that issues and attitudes are not always simple or predictable. The book highlights the many societal restrictions on eighteenth-century women as it introduces a sympathetic heroine who looks for ways around them. An epilogue, an author's note, and a bibliography are appended. A quiet but involving piece that Rinaldi's many fans will enjoy.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)