When Will This Cruel War Be Over?: The Civil War Diary of Emma Simpson, Gordonsville, Virginia, 1864

by Barry Denenberg

Book Overview

The peaceful Southern life that Emma Simpson and her family have always known is shattered when the Civil War begins. Emma's father and brother are called to battle, but her family believes the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0590228625
• ISBN13: 9780590228626
• Release Date: September 1996
• Publisher: Scholastic
• Length: 156 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 7.7"
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

Phenomenal!!

I immensely enjoyed reading this book! It's another great book to add to your Dear America collection. I honestly have to say I haven't been disappointed in any of the books I've read in this series! This author for 'When Will This Cruel War Be Over' did a marvelous job! This is a must read!!

This is a good book!!

I really enjoyed this book! The reader can realize the tragedy of the Civil War, not through a Union soldier's eyes, but through Emma, a teenage girl struggling with the many changes she faces. Her diary speaks of her sorrow and joy, her anger and sadness with the war. Emma respects her family and most of her friends. However, she rarely got rebuked, which bored me a little. This is a great book. The author was good at making it seem like Emma is writing. Do not miss this Civil War tale!

The Civil War Diary of Emma Simpson

I have been reading a book called When Will This Cruel War be Over? The Civil War diary of Emma Simpson by Barry Denenberg. This book is a diary of a little girl named Emma Simpson who is living through the Civil War. She writes all of her thoughts, hopes and dreams in her diary. She has a very hard life during the civil war. Her father, brother and uncle have all gone to in to the war to fight the Yankees/Negroes. At the beginning of the book her family and she found out that her brother/Brother Cole has just been killed. Her aunt and cousins come out to take care of her and her mother. A little bit later in the book her mother dies. So her father writes her and tell her everything is going to be OK. After a few chapters the Yankees make Emma, her aunt, and her cousins live on the 3rd floor so the Yankees can use their house as a hospital. Emma helps out but wishes they will just leave her family alone. When they do finally leave they trash the house. The only room on the 1st floor that isn’t trash in the library because that is where the general’s office was. Emma has gone through a lot but she goes through a lot more. When the war is over Emma and her family has gone through a lot of pain. (...) This is the war that a few days after President Abraham Lincoln got killed. This is a very historical book. I would recommend this book to 7th and 8th graders across the USA and in other countries too. If you don’t like books that are about wars or suffering then I wouldn’t recommend this book. I liked this book.

A southern teen experiences many hardships in the Civil War.

Born into a wealthy Southern plantation family, Emma Simpson had every luxury she desired.... until the outbreak of the Civil War. Her father, brother, uncle, and the young man she loves go off to war - her brother and uncle to die early on. But the hardships are not limited to the battlefield - they reach out to touch Emma's sheltered, quiet home in ways she never imagined possible. There are rumors that the slaves she thought faithful to her family plan to run away. Deserters from both sides raid the farm, stealing the food Emma, her mother, and her aunt and cousin, who have come to stay for the remainder of the war, need in order to survive. And when her already frail mother becomes desperatley ill, and soon dies, Emma has only her aunt and cousin to turn to. But things become even worse when Yankees invade the peaceful countryside and take over Emma's house to use as headquarters. Confined to an upstairs room, Emma has now lost the one thing left of her life before the war. But she is determined to never give up and wait for the day her father and sweetheart will return home to her. I highly reccomend this book. It showed how the Southern families lives' were torn apart by the Civil War and how a lot of them practiced slavery simply because it was what their families had been doing for generations and they knew no other way of life.

A MUST READ BOOK!

I read a book en-titled, When Will This Cruel War Be Over? A diary of Emma Simpson. This is a very good book. You learn alot of interesting facts about the Civil War.It is about a girl named Emma Simpson and her and her family get attacked by the Yankees. They have to move all of their stuff up to the top floor. When the Yankees invade their house, they eat all of their food, take all of their stuff and burn and ruin all of their furniture. I like how the author has most of his characters have a dialect, each character has his or hers own personality. This book is an A+, 100%book! You must read this book.

IT WAS THE BEST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ.

THIS WAS THE FRIST DEAR AMERICA BOOK I EVER READ. I WAS UNSURE ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT I WOULD LIKE IT. BUT WHEN I STARTED READING IT I FELT LIKE I WAS ACTUALLY EMMA THE MAIN CHARACTER.THAT IS WHY I RATE IT 5 STAR. THE AUTHOR SEEMS TO DRAW YOU INTO THE BOOK MORE AND MORE.