A Month of Seven Days

The title of my book was A Month of Seven Days by Shirley Climo. When 12 year old Zoe discovers that her home in Georgia is taken over by union soldiers, she must do all she can to try and get them out. A captain of the union soldiers has taken over Zoe Snyder's home. It is up to her and her brother to find out how to make them leave. She tells the captain stories of how the house is haunted and that Indians killed her grandmother right there to. She also tells him that at night strange things happen and how there are weird sounds that you can hear because of a reckless ghost. She tries to run away because she can’t scare the captain enough to make him leave but ends up being found by a Yankee soldier. The Yankee soldier was a young man she knew, the young man was forced to become a Yankee soldier. The young man helped the girl but then in the morning she wakes up and everybody is celebrating because the Yankees have withdrawn their forces. In the end everybody goes back to their normal lives and Zoe's mom has another baby. My reaction when I was first reading the book was that it was really intriguing because of all the different things that happen. I was trying to predict what might be the significance of the item or event in the story. I liked the book because of the plot. The thing I liked most about this novel was the action of the story and how it kept me thinking. Like when the boy and the girl ran into the woods and saw a bear. They were afraid. So they ran and screamed all the way out of the woods and back to the house. Then when Zoe was telling the captain a scary story about death and haunting. Lastly, the part where Zoe runs away and gets help from a good friend who was recruited as a Yankee soldier. When they were running they heard startling noises that to them sounded all like union soldiers following them. That is why I liked this book. By reading this novel I learned many things. One, most people in Georgia were poor. Only about 2 people mentioned in the story weren’t poor. They were poor because settlers who came to Georgia were either really poor or debtors. Second, during this time men from Georgia were recruited as soldiers to help fight for the Yankees. A young man was recruited for the Yankees who didn’t even to want fight. The men recruited were usually recruited by force. Then, I learned that the Indians scared the union soldiers not with there weapons but with their war cries. The sound of an Indian war cry and the image of one is what scared the captain out of the house. At first when the union soldiers heard the Indians war cry it frightened them but later the Indians war cries encouraged the union soldiers to fight. The union soldiers started yelling war cries to. Lastly I learned that Abraham Lincoln was president during the 1860s. Lincoln was president during the civil war and that is what time this novel was based upon. These facts prove and disprove the historical accuracy of the novel. First, a lot of poor people did live in Georgia. The reason this is historically accurate is because people who lived in Georgia were poor, Great Britain settlers or debtors. The year they use in this book is 1864. This is also historically accurate because the battle of Chattanooga was fought in 1864 during the civil war in Georgia. There were casualties in the battle of Chattanooga. In the story, nobody was killed. Which disproves this part of the book’s historical accuracy. The total amount of casualties during the battle of Chattanooga was 440 the North with 190 and the South with 250. A Month of Seven Days by Shirley Climo was a very good book and that’s why I chose to write about it and if you’re looking for a good book I recommend this one.