Across Five Aprils

cshowalter - Across five Aprils s about Jethro Creighton. He lives in a cabin. His friend and teacher Shadrach returns from Newton with news that the war has begun. Jethro has three brothers Bill,Tom,John, Nd his cousin Eb. Jethro doesn't like the split between them because 3 join the Union Army and 1 joins the Confederacy. Shadrach joind the Union Army also. Jethro's friend Jenny is in love with Shadrach,but her father doesn't approve of marriage. Jethro's father dies from a heart atteck, now Jethro has to become the head of the house. One day Jethro travels to Newton then hears people talking about how evil his brothe is. Jethro is warned that those men are up to no good. After a few months the men are at it again, they sabotage the families farm by burnig down the farm and contaminating the water. Jethro finds out that his brother Tom is killed and that his cousin Eb is coming home. Jethro wrote a letter to President Lincon for help and begins to look up to him as a father. President Lincon replies,telling him he is already working on a program to except all willing soldiers back into the Union with little punishment. The family find out that Shadrach is wounded and in the hospital. Jenny goes to take care of him, and gets her fathers blessing. Jenny and Shadrach get married. Shadrach gets better, the war ends, and Jenny ,John,and Eb return to the mossi g farm. At the end Jethro find out that the presiden has been shot. He runs off but is found by Shadrach. Shadrach tells him that he and Jenny are going to collage and they will take him with them.

January 1, 2002
Narrator Terry Bregy adopts an appropriately boyish tone for his reading of Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt, a Newbery Honor Book in 1965. Bregy compels readers to hear young Jethro Creighton's account of how the horrifying events of the Civil War changed life on his family's Illinois farm, even so many miles from the front lines.