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Amelia's War
A riveting middle-grade Civil War drama by acclaimed author, Ann Rinaldi. Based on a true incident.
As the Civil War rages, Amelia's Maryland town is beset by divisions. Even she and her best friend Josh disagree. Amelia vows not to take sides, until the Confederate troops march into town...led by Josh's uncle.
As the Civil War rages, Amelia's Maryland town is beset by divisions. Even she and her best friend Josh disagree. Amelia vows not to take sides, until the Confederate troops march into town...led by Josh's uncle.
272 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1999
19 people are currently reading
499 people want to read
About the author
Ann Rinaldi
69 books986 followersAnn Rinaldi (b. August 27, 1934, in New York City) is a young adult fiction author. She is best known for her historical fiction, including In My Father's House, The Last Silk Dress, An Acquaintance with Darkness, A Break with Charity, and Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons. She has written a total of forty novels, eight of which were listed as notable by the ALA. In 2000, Wolf by the Ears was listed as one the best novels of the preceding twenty-five years, and later of the last one hundred years. She is the most prolific writer for the Great Episode series, a series of historical fiction novels set during the American Colonial era. She also writes for the Dear America series.
Rinaldi currently lives in Somerville, New Jersey, with her husband, Ron, whom she married in 1960. Her career, prior to being an author, was a newspaper columnist. She continued the column, called The Trentonian, through much of her writing career. Her first published novel, Term Paper, was written in 1979. Prior to this, she wrote four unpublished books, which she has called "terrible." She became a grandmother in 1991.
Rinaldi says she got her love of history from her eldest son, who brought her to reenactments. She says that she writes young adult books "because I like to write them."
Rinaldi currently lives in Somerville, New Jersey, with her husband, Ron, whom she married in 1960. Her career, prior to being an author, was a newspaper columnist. She continued the column, called The Trentonian, through much of her writing career. Her first published novel, Term Paper, was written in 1979. Prior to this, she wrote four unpublished books, which she has called "terrible." She became a grandmother in 1991.
Rinaldi says she got her love of history from her eldest son, who brought her to reenactments. She says that she writes young adult books "because I like to write them."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
January 12, 2018
Amelia’s War by Ann Rinaldi
The book is about a girl who want to do her part in the Civil War.
She doesn’t live in the 21century but back in the 1800’s so they live differently.
This book is good for teenagers because you can see what a girl about your age has to do back then during a War. The main characters are Amelia, Wes, Amelia’s younger brother, mother, father, Wes’ girlfriend, and Amelia’s friend. The conflict is about living in the south but wanting the north to win. I loved this book and would definitely recommend to everyone. It was cringy at some parts but otherwise it was great. I makes you laugh, cry, and it gives a perfect picture in your mind.
The book is about a girl who want to do her part in the Civil War.
She doesn’t live in the 21century but back in the 1800’s so they live differently.
This book is good for teenagers because you can see what a girl about your age has to do back then during a War. The main characters are Amelia, Wes, Amelia’s younger brother, mother, father, Wes’ girlfriend, and Amelia’s friend. The conflict is about living in the south but wanting the north to win. I loved this book and would definitely recommend to everyone. It was cringy at some parts but otherwise it was great. I makes you laugh, cry, and it gives a perfect picture in your mind.
June 10, 2010
This was interesting to see the view of the war from a young persons point of view and how it affected her and her family personally. It made me more interested in learning more about the civil war.
December 17, 2012
In the beginning I wasn't sure about reading this book. I was considering checking out a different book but I thought I should learn to like it because Ann Rinaldi has written alot of great historical fiction books in our library. It was a challenging book in the beginning. I actually had to read it with a dictionary beside me. It turned out to be a great book. Amelia (main charactor)is a 13 year-old girl growing up during the Civil War. Her older brother, Wes snuck off to join the war, so they hired a maid to help them with extra chores. Her name is Jinny and she really wants to join the war. The problem is she is a young woman. These days that wouldn't be a problem. Back then though people had different ideas about what women could and couldn't do. I am guessing that is why songs and books back then say "men" when they are referring to people in general. So anyway Jinny decided to join the war undercover as a man. That was not uncommon during the Civil War.
She chopped off her hair and some other choice things and joined the war. That was one of my favorite parts in the book. I know I wouldn't do something like that but I would definatly want to sew flags for the hospital like Amelia's mom did. She even helped as a nurse. I described in the book the body parts that lay lifeless on the battle field. I hope I never have to expierence that. I love historical fiction and sometimes I wish I could try living back then, but I would never want to live back then forever. Amelia's friend's uncle was a general for the Confederates. He ordered 200,000 dollars and supplies or else he would burn Amelia's town down. Amelia changed the 200,000 on the order slip to 20,000 and got all the suppies needed to save the town. Amelia had won. She saved her town. She won Amelia's War.
She chopped off her hair and some other choice things and joined the war. That was one of my favorite parts in the book. I know I wouldn't do something like that but I would definatly want to sew flags for the hospital like Amelia's mom did. She even helped as a nurse. I described in the book the body parts that lay lifeless on the battle field. I hope I never have to expierence that. I love historical fiction and sometimes I wish I could try living back then, but I would never want to live back then forever. Amelia's friend's uncle was a general for the Confederates. He ordered 200,000 dollars and supplies or else he would burn Amelia's town down. Amelia changed the 200,000 on the order slip to 20,000 and got all the suppies needed to save the town. Amelia had won. She saved her town. She won Amelia's War.
May 21, 2012
Amelia’s War packs a lot of information into less than 300 pages, but Rinaldi is great when it comes to pacing the plot, generating tension, and doling out information without overwhelming readers — which is helpful because the book is geared toward 10- to 14-year-olds, but even adults like me who don’t know a lot about the war will be entertained and informed. Rinaldi covers everything from the ransom of Hagerstown in July 1864, the plight of former slaves, how young women fought as soldiers, the harsh conditions endured by the worn-down soldiers, and women’s rights to the difficulty of staying neutral when war rages all around you and how important it is to stick by your friends even when you don’t see eye to eye on certain things like war. An author’s note at the end of the book helps readers separate the fact from the fiction.
The Civil War not only divided the country, but it also divided the people, pitting neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend. It affected both men and women, young and old. Amelia’s War emphasizes that young people can make a big difference and that history is full of ordinary people who did extraordinary things. Rinaldi takes these lessons and transforms them into a thought-provoking story that exemplifies middle-grade historical fiction at its finest. Best of all, Rinaldi knows that younger readers want stories with some substance and that they can handle tough subjects like war, and she crafts them in a way that appeals to readers of all ages.
Full review on Diary of an Eccentric.
The Civil War not only divided the country, but it also divided the people, pitting neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend. It affected both men and women, young and old. Amelia’s War emphasizes that young people can make a big difference and that history is full of ordinary people who did extraordinary things. Rinaldi takes these lessons and transforms them into a thought-provoking story that exemplifies middle-grade historical fiction at its finest. Best of all, Rinaldi knows that younger readers want stories with some substance and that they can handle tough subjects like war, and she crafts them in a way that appeals to readers of all ages.
Full review on Diary of an Eccentric.
May 3, 2011
I picked up this book while I was substitute teaching because it looked interesting (I'm a sucker for history books). Amelia's War is based on a true story that took place during the civil war. While this book is intended for a "young reader" audience, Rinaldi did a great job keeping it interesting for me too. The characters were both believable and likeable, especially the strong heroine, Amelia. I gained an appreciation for what it was like to live in a border state during the Civil War. Sometimes Hagerstown was occupied by the confederates and sometimes it was occupied by the yankees. The principle characters were fictional however the surrounding characters and events were real. It was a simple story with a really good message at the end about taking a risk for those you love and standing up for what is right, even when it is a scary thing to do.
December 27, 2009
လင္ကြန္းေခတ္ အေမရိကန္ျပည္တြင္းစစ္ကို ဇာတ္လမ္းေက်ာ႐ိုးျပဳထားသည္။ စင္စစ္သမိုင္းျဖစ္ရပ္မွန္ကို အေျချပဳ၍ စိတ္ကူးယဥ္ဇာတ္ေကာင္မ်ား၊ ဇာတ္ကြက္မ်ား ေရာေမြထားသည့္ ၀တၳဳတစ္ပုဒ္ျဖစ္ပါသည္။ ၁၈၆၄ ခုႏွစ္ ဇူလိုင္လ ပထမပတ္တြင္ ျဖစ္ပြားခဲ့သည့္ ေမရီလန္း၊ ဟဂၢါစတန္ (Hagerston) မွ ေတာင္ပိုင္းတပ္ေပါင္းစု (the Confederate) ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ John McCausland ေငြညွစ္သည့္ကိစၥကို ေနာက္ခံျပဳထားျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္။
March 19, 2023
I’m a lover of historical fiction, I usually read books set in WWII so reading one set in the Civil War was a nice change. It’s a sweet book, but it’s not one I’m going to remember for years to come, or a even think about a couple months from now. It’s worth a read if you have time, and if you like historical fiction.
March 24, 2016
Another great book by Ann Rinaldi.
What a way to take a piece of history and spin a wonderful, attention-getting story.
Maryland was a divided, Border state and many of citizens had family fighting on both sides.
What a way to take a piece of history and spin a wonderful, attention-getting story.
Maryland was a divided, Border state and many of citizens had family fighting on both sides.
February 8, 2024
I read so many of Ann Rinaldi’s books as a preteen + teen. Anything historical, especially her ones about the revolutionary and civil wars I devoured. My favorite was always ‘time enough for drums’. It was so good. I still reread that one.
Somehow this one slipped thru the cracks of me having read of hers, so when I saw this at the thrift store I grabbed it. I love how Ann just places us directly into history with the first paragraph of the story, the first civil war death — Dewitt Clinton Rench. Or the arrest of Mr. Dechart. Ann loved weaving real facts and people into her stories.
I feel that reading this as an adult makes it feel even more far away than some of her older YA historial books. This one reads very young. I think Amelia has to be like 10-11 for the style of writing this book has. It became a little boring to read at times because of this. However, I think for that age group, books like this are so important teaching kids about history.
Somehow this one slipped thru the cracks of me having read of hers, so when I saw this at the thrift store I grabbed it. I love how Ann just places us directly into history with the first paragraph of the story, the first civil war death — Dewitt Clinton Rench. Or the arrest of Mr. Dechart. Ann loved weaving real facts and people into her stories.
I feel that reading this as an adult makes it feel even more far away than some of her older YA historial books. This one reads very young. I think Amelia has to be like 10-11 for the style of writing this book has. It became a little boring to read at times because of this. However, I think for that age group, books like this are so important teaching kids about history.
March 24, 2019
What a sad story but isn’t the civil war sad? Talk about a time period where kids grew up fast - this was it. Young girls cooked and helped the family and went to school while falling in love way too early. No room for silliness. Young boys at 10 were ready to be drummer boys. Compare this to the present and we delay adulthood and responsibilities extending childhood until college. Great story of the difficulties living in the same town and siding against others with their individual alliances - north or south. How the women cared for wounded soldiers in the field after battle from either side and how the generals could be ruthless and burn down entire towns. This is a 5th or middle school read.
June 29, 2024
This is quite a love and a little bit of boring read for me in the first half of the book. I'm trying to push myself to interest myself. The writing in the beginning for me was hard to concentrate or focus on. I guess the story went slow for me. However, I enjoyed the half ending and the story I have patched altogether. As the author explained her book, It's actually a great plot of storyline, yet it was just not the style of writing for me, or at least half of the book. Overall, it was a great history to learn a little about the Civil War and the Confederates.
August 13, 2018
A pleasant little book that tells a story about a young teenage girl and her family and friends as they struggle to understand and survive the civil war. Probably more of a book for young people than adults.
November 16, 2021
It was dogshit. It was slow, boring, incompetent, and completely retarded. The main character is dumb fuckin' bimbo who does NOTHING and has NO character development through the whole book until the fuckin' end.
September 20, 2017
This book was based on true events, although the main character and her family are fictitious. A great read for someone wanting to learn more about the Civil War.
July 10, 2018
This story focuses on a family that lives in Hagerstown, MD, and the events of the Civil War, such as the battle of Antietam, that effected them.
October 6, 2018
Ok for 4th - 7th grade - not as good as her other books; I usually love Rinaldi's historical fiction.
October 12, 2018
It was a great book. I haven't really read any Civil War books before, but this one was really intriguing. I was hooked from the very beginning.
November 11, 2019
I loved this book. Many a time I was close to tears. Some of it was a little hard to follow, but beautifully and simply written. A must.
September 28, 2021
A good historical children's fiction - I didn't enjoy it as much as I usually do Ann Rinaldi's books.
January 27, 2022
Amelia has been through the Civil War. She has stayed at home and has not made a difference yet. Her time has come but it Amelia willing to risk her and her family's lives?
July 10, 2022
Great historical fiction for young adults. It had information about the civil war that I didn't know a lot about and was very fast paced.
July 1, 2024
I love Ann Rinaldi, but for some reason, I just didn’t like this book. It’s lame that I can’t explain why, maybe it was the characters, maybe it was some of the dialogue. I don’t know.
January 31, 2009
Another book set in the American Civil War. I'm loving the fact that my "to be read soon" basket had a second book from the same time-frame as the Halifax Connection (which I finished reading a week ago) from another viewpoint of the war, in a totally different setting. I was wanting to read more historical fiction from this era of history after finishing The Halifax Connection
Amelia Grafton’s life is changing in ways she didn’t expect. She and her family live in the Pro-Union state of Maryland. Her family supports the Union. But as the Civil War progresses and comes closer to her hometown it seems like everyone is slowly choosing sides with the Union or the Confederates. Everyone, it seems except her good friend Josh. Who is determined to keep a neutral outlook on the war in order to write well informed and truthful stories about the battles being fought around them for his father’s paper the Hagerstown Mail.
The War moves closer, with Lee’s forces invading Hagerstown three times. The final time there is even fighting in the town square! Amelia and her family struggle to keep their lives going as they had before the war. Her older brother Wes runs off to join the Union forces and Amelia is faced with the fact that he may not survive the battles being fought. Through it all, Amelia must decide how she can stay true to her own belief’s and figure out what she can do to help the war effort when the right time comes.
Amelia’s War is written by Ann Rinaldi, who has written many historical fiction stories. She based her story on the ransom of Hagerstown, Maryland, which happened the first week of July in 1864. She writes an informative story that sets a fictitious family into a well documented part of the American Civil War. This is the second book written by Ann Rinaldi that I have read, and I enjoyed it a lot. She has a way of writing that puts the reader right into the lives of her characters. I enjoyed seeing the war through the eyes of a young girl. It gave me a different insight to what was happening during that time frame. This is a fantastic look into how the Civil War affected the everyday life of the people who lived in the areas being fought on. I would recommend this book for any older child who is wanting to learn about the American Civil War.
Amelia Grafton’s life is changing in ways she didn’t expect. She and her family live in the Pro-Union state of Maryland. Her family supports the Union. But as the Civil War progresses and comes closer to her hometown it seems like everyone is slowly choosing sides with the Union or the Confederates. Everyone, it seems except her good friend Josh. Who is determined to keep a neutral outlook on the war in order to write well informed and truthful stories about the battles being fought around them for his father’s paper the Hagerstown Mail.
The War moves closer, with Lee’s forces invading Hagerstown three times. The final time there is even fighting in the town square! Amelia and her family struggle to keep their lives going as they had before the war. Her older brother Wes runs off to join the Union forces and Amelia is faced with the fact that he may not survive the battles being fought. Through it all, Amelia must decide how she can stay true to her own belief’s and figure out what she can do to help the war effort when the right time comes.
Amelia’s War is written by Ann Rinaldi, who has written many historical fiction stories. She based her story on the ransom of Hagerstown, Maryland, which happened the first week of July in 1864. She writes an informative story that sets a fictitious family into a well documented part of the American Civil War. This is the second book written by Ann Rinaldi that I have read, and I enjoyed it a lot. She has a way of writing that puts the reader right into the lives of her characters. I enjoyed seeing the war through the eyes of a young girl. It gave me a different insight to what was happening during that time frame. This is a fantastic look into how the Civil War affected the everyday life of the people who lived in the areas being fought on. I would recommend this book for any older child who is wanting to learn about the American Civil War.
February 21, 2017
I was surprised that I liked this book. I didn't think I would so I kept putting of reading it until my mom made me. I am glad she did. It was very interesting, but I did get a little confused at times about why some things did or didn't happen. I think it's a good book for 6th graders.
July 25, 2010
This book was really good. I always enjoy reading about the Civil War and Ann Rinaldi seems to do a fantastic job telling a story from lots of different viewpoints. This Civil War story was told from the perspective of a young lady from Hagerstown, Maryland. She and her family were Union sympathizers and the author says that the main focal point of this story was the ransom of Hagerstown in the spring of 1864 by Brigadier General McCausland C.S.A. The book is so titled because according to the story everyone during the Civil War had their own sort of war to battle within the one the States were battling and the main character, Amelia Grafton, started out not wanting to take sides in the war and wishing it would just go away, but in the end she chose a side and actually ended up helping save the town from being burned down by the Rebs. I have never really cared for the Union myself but this story was really well done. I felt bad for the people of Hagerstown and was appalled when the general came through demanding outrageous sums to not burn the town. I can't imagine what that must have been like. What is worse is that other towns McCausland visited did get burned to the ground. The whole war was completely unseemly and I can't believe people did these kinds of things to friends and family. The book was really engaging and when Amelia got that letter from Josh's commander I actually cried because I really liked his character and his relationship with Amelia. I did find Amelia's mother really irritating. I mean the entire town is giving all they have to keep the Rebs happy and she can't part with some clothes that her son won't even be able to fit in anymore. Pretty much throughout the whole story I found myself being pissed at Amelia's mother quite often. I guess I have a problem with the over emotional types.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 1, 2016
Amelia's War is a thoroughly excellent book about the Civil War. It is based on historical facts, with a few, but not many, fictional people thrown in.
Amelia and her family live a town in Maryland. What is important about this is that the town is very strongly divided between those who favor the Union (including Amelia and her family) and those who favor the South. There are a number of rather ugly incidents that take place showing just how strong feelings are that some of the people have against those who don't believe the same way.
The newspaper office is destroyed, but a young boy remains behind to try to get it going again. He leans towards supporting the Rebels. Amelia is trying to stay totally neutral, but finds it harder and harder.
Complicating matters tremendously is that, because of the location of the town, there are frequently army forces going through the town; sometimes it's Union forces, and sometimes it's Southern forces. Sometimes the encounters are peaceful, and sometimes the worst sides of the fighters is seen.
There's also another girl who has to kill a Rebel drifter when he tries to take advantage of her. She wants to get involved in the fighting. Amelia's older brother leaves to join the fighting. Her father has to make trips out of town to get supplies for his store, but sometimes he has to leave since he's a Union-sympathizer and, when the Rebels come through town, it's healthy for such people to be far away.
Although even with the Rebels around, things can happen.
It's a really good book to show just how divisive the Civil War could be on an entire town, and how that can affect a family. There is also a very ugly incident relating to a Southern general's threat to destroy the town if a ransom in money and goods is not paid, and that shows a very, very nasty part of the war.
Absolutely worth reading.
Amelia and her family live a town in Maryland. What is important about this is that the town is very strongly divided between those who favor the Union (including Amelia and her family) and those who favor the South. There are a number of rather ugly incidents that take place showing just how strong feelings are that some of the people have against those who don't believe the same way.
The newspaper office is destroyed, but a young boy remains behind to try to get it going again. He leans towards supporting the Rebels. Amelia is trying to stay totally neutral, but finds it harder and harder.
Complicating matters tremendously is that, because of the location of the town, there are frequently army forces going through the town; sometimes it's Union forces, and sometimes it's Southern forces. Sometimes the encounters are peaceful, and sometimes the worst sides of the fighters is seen.
There's also another girl who has to kill a Rebel drifter when he tries to take advantage of her. She wants to get involved in the fighting. Amelia's older brother leaves to join the fighting. Her father has to make trips out of town to get supplies for his store, but sometimes he has to leave since he's a Union-sympathizer and, when the Rebels come through town, it's healthy for such people to be far away.
Although even with the Rebels around, things can happen.
It's a really good book to show just how divisive the Civil War could be on an entire town, and how that can affect a family. There is also a very ugly incident relating to a Southern general's threat to destroy the town if a ransom in money and goods is not paid, and that shows a very, very nasty part of the war.
Absolutely worth reading.
October 7, 2013
I feel in love with reading (and caught up as a reader in the 5th grade reading Young Adult Civil War historical fiction. I was excited to try a new book to recommend to my students. Plus, I haven't found a book that I was quite loved as much as Dara Horn's All Other Nights (adult fiction).
The book was well written and interesting, but the war seemed to easy suffering wise for the Civil War. Food seemed to be abundant throughout the war Plus, I was craving just a hint more of romance between the teen characters. I know that is silly, but that is what my heart wanted.
Overall, it was a book with many strong, intelligent, resourceful female and male characters. HUGE PLUS. I wanted a little more depth of despair with touches of hope for the book to truly make it reach it's potential.
The book was well written and interesting, but the war seemed to easy suffering wise for the Civil War. Food seemed to be abundant throughout the war Plus, I was craving just a hint more of romance between the teen characters. I know that is silly, but that is what my heart wanted.
Overall, it was a book with many strong, intelligent, resourceful female and male characters. HUGE PLUS. I wanted a little more depth of despair with touches of hope for the book to truly make it reach it's potential.
May 30, 2015
13 year old Amelia is living in war stricken Maryland. Everyone around her is taking sides, but she vows not to. The one time she got involved, there were serious consequences for her friend Josh. Since then, she has stayed out of it for good. She and Josh have no interest in fighting for their sides, instead they chose to write about their surroundings and how it affects them. One day they get a chance to make a change in the war, but they are concerned about whether or not it will tear their friendship and their town apart. They make their decision, and it will change them and their town forever, for better or for worse.
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December 16, 2016Amelia's war is a very interesting and excited book about a girl who wants to be a part of something important in the war. A general wants 200,000 dollars but the money gets changed to 20,000 by someone. Every boy in town is off to war even Amelia's brother Wes. Amelia's mother is scared that something bad might happen to her son but she still believes in him. Amelia is helping her good friend josh by giving him information about the war and what's happening but there's a little secret that josh is keeping away from Amelia. Amelia as a good daughter looks out for her father trying to help him in every possible way.
June 4, 2009
This story is based on the ransom of the town of Hagerstown, Maryland, during the Civil War. Amelia decides not to take sides in the civil war issue but finds herself thrust into the scene without choice. She is used as the character who changes the ransom by General McCausland demanding $200,000 to read a tenth of that. The story is a wonderful portrayal of friendship as seen between Amelia and Josh and how we cannot sit back and let everyone else take care of things. We have to make our own stand and be willing to fight for right.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews