Booktalking Colorado - Full Booktalk Record

Booktalking Colorado Full Record:

	Title:	Soldier's Heart
	Author:	Paulsen, Gary
	Date Published:	1999
	Genre:	Historical Fiction
	Grade Level:	8 - 12
	Booktalker:	Sam Marsh

Booktalk:
It was going to be a real "shooting war," the kind that might come along only once in a lifetime. It was so exciting with all the songs and slogans and girls fainting at meetings and...it was better than a circus (or so I'd heard, never having seen a circus). We were going to take care of them rebels who had violated the law and fired on Fort Sumter. Steel was all that they'd respect. This might be my only chance! But, even though I worked all day in the fields, and into the night, I was only 15 and not considered a 'man.' At least not man enough to be allowed to join the army. So, I'd take myself over to a town where I wasn't known and sign on as being 18 and a man and get me a musket and uniform and go off to see what a real war was like. Otherwise, I'd just plain miss out. I told my Ma, and said I'd send most of the money, eleven dollars a month, home and I'd get out from under her feet...talking fast, 'cause I always got my way when I talked fast. Ever since Pa had died...kicked to death by a horse gone mad from a swarm of bees giving it whatfore. Ma gave me some bread, cold potatoes and chicken and I left for Fort Snelling. Nobody though it would be so bad, not even Ma. Nobody thought it could be so bad, and it was to be over in a month or so. By fall, it'd all be over... RIGHT! It was the Civil War.