Two Girls of Gettysburg

by Lisa Klein

Overview

Lizzie and Rosanna are cousins. But when the Civil War breaks out, Lizzie finds herself committed to the cause of the Union, while Rosie is swept up in the passions of the old south. Torn in their alliances, each girl finds herself grappling with the brutality of war, and the elusive promise of love, until the battle at Gettysburg brings them together once agin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781599908052
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	04/10/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	416
Lexile:	830L (what's this?)
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	12 Years

About the Author

LISA KLEIN is also the author of Ophelia and Lady MacBeth's Daughter. A former professor of English, she lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her family.
LISA KLEIN is the author of Lady Macbeth's Daughter, Two Girls of Gettysburg, and Ophelia. A former professor of English, she lives in Ohio with her family. www.authorlisaklein.com

Editorial Reviews

Gr 6-9

In 1861, the Confederacy has just declared its independence from the Union, but life goes on much as usual in the quiet town of Gettysburg. Fifteen-year-old Lizzie Allbauer and her cousin Rosanna, recently arrived from Virginia, have big plans to attend the Ladies' Seminary together in the fall. Then Lizzie's father and brother enlist in the Union army and she must stay home to help her mother run the family butcher shop. Rosanna flees back to Richmond after a Gettysburg beau is killed in one of the early battles. Torn between her romanticized view of the war and her parents' conservative rules, Rosanna impulsively agrees to marry a former beau, John Wilcox. Within a month of marriage, he is injured, and Rosanna rushes to meet up with the Virginia Infantry so that she can care for him. Realizing that she has a gift for healing, she stays on with her husband's company as a nurse. Chapters alternate between Rosanna's journal entries of her life as a Confederate nurse and Lizzie's accounts of the events leading up to the July 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. While Klein's extensive research is evident, the alternating voices have only limited success: readers will be drawn to Lizzie's genuine warmth, but frivolous Rosanna's leap to the ultra-responsible wife and nurse and the stilted dialogues in her journal entries stretch credibility. Still, Klein's weaving of the young women's stories to a shared conclusion gives a fresh perspective on the complexities of the Civil War.-Kim Dare, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA

School Library Journal

Klein's second novel offers a new take on the brother-versus-brother saga of the American Civil War. Teenage cousins Lizzie and Rosanna become firm friends when Rosanna moves to the small town of Gettysburg, Pa. After the war begins, however, Rosanna returns home to Virginia and impetuously marries a Confederate soldier; Lizzie finds herself running her father's butcher shop after he and her brother join the Union army. Without quite meaning to, Rosanna becomes a camp follower and later a devoted army nurse; the cousins meet again as the battle of Gettyburg rages. Lizzie's first-person narration carries more emotional weight than Rosanna's somewhat distant journal entries, but none of the characters are developed strongly. The African-Americans, in particular, all seem rather like Mammy, cut from Good-Negro cloth, devoted to their white masters whether they are free or slave. But Klein's account of the battle and its effect on civilian life is compelling, and makes this a worthwhile addition to Civil War literature. (Historical fiction. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews