Hear the wind blow; a novel of the Civil War. (Hardcover Fiction).

HAHN, Mary Downing. Hear the wind blow; a novel of the Civil War. Houghton Mifflin, Clarion. 212p. c2003. 0-618-18190-3. $15.00.

Along the Appalachian mountains of Virginia, at the end of the Civil War, chaos is everywhere. Hahn chooses to tell the story of that horrible disintegration through the voice of 13-year-old Haswell Magruder, who is trying to protect his mother and his little sister on the family's farm. Haswell's mother grieves for her husband, who died in the war, and all are worried about the fate of 16-year-old Avery. who joined up with the Confederacy. A young soldier, sick and wounded, appears during a snowstorm. They nurse him back to health, knowing that Yankees could attack them if they discover the family harboring a rebel soldier-and that does happen. Haswell's pacifistic mother kills the captain as he tries to rape her: the soldiers hunt down and kill the patient, and then they burn the house in retribution. The mother goes mad with her guilt and the destruction of all they have known and dies of a fever, leaving the children alone with the dead bodies. It's the details of the diseases, injuries, and deaths that m ake this novel so realistic, unlike many children's books that might skirt over such gory matters.

Haswell and young Rachel (one of the most precocious 7-year-olds you might ever find and a good source of comic relief in this grim tale) take the horse of the dead captain and ride away to find their grandmother and aunts in Winchester, Virginia. There they see their uncle collaborating with the occupying Yankee forces, which disgusts them. Haswell leaves Rachel behind with the family and continues on his journey, now looking for his older brother farther south, near Appomattox. The horror culminates with the final battle that leads to Lee's surrender, and afterwards Haswell searches the tents filled with the injured and dying to find his brother.

So this is a book about a journey, a literal journey and a figurative one, the latter being a journey into the heart of darkness, as so many other war stories are. Haswell is resourceful, realistically disgusted and horrified by the events that unfold, but strong enough to face the inevitable hard times facing them after the defeat. This is an ideal novel to complement Civil War studies at the middle school level.