This is a children's book. I was home and wondered how astute my taste for literature was when I was a child. This is one of the books I remembered reading when I was.... 10? 11 max. I read Ender's Game when I was 12 and have clear memories of what I thought about it. When I re-read that book at 23, I understood more of the motivation and actually liked it more, but many of the emotions and logical analysis of the story were still spot-on. So, I thought I'd try that with this book. It is a small, child-sized book so I was ok with the idea that it would likely suck and be childish. (I did not remember the story at all beyond kid meets civil war ghost and they do something, along with the vague memory that the boy was whiny.)
Well, the book didn't suck! And the end is the best part because you read this whole fictional story only for the author to tell you that the entire story set-up is true. I did, and still do, love stories started with a grain of truth. It's why I like historical fiction and Clive Cussler's books.
It does spend a lot of time on the lead character's issues with self-worth and confidence (where my memories of the character being whiny came from) but it is very appropriate for the target audience. I didn't like that when I was younger (the age it should have had an impact on) but now as an adult, I would leave it in because I think most kids would benefit from watching the growth of the character. I did not need that as a kid, thus my dislike of it. Today, I'm still less interested about the "personal journey" than the action but I did enjoy watching a kid mature.
Now that the internet exists, I was looking up the author's name for this and saw that this book has very high reviews across the board, so I'm not alone.
In conclusion, I would highly, highly recommend this book to anyone in the age range plus a few year. As for adults, if you're a fast reader it's a one-night read and therefore worth it.
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