The Buffalo Soldier

by Sherry Garland

Overview

Freed slaves who headed West to start careers in the army after the Civil War were nicknamed buffalo soldiers by the Cheyenne Indians because of their hair and their displays of strength. A buffalo soldier�s account of the bravery and courage of the Tenth Calvary during the Indian wars and the Spanish-American War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781589803916
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	08/08/2006
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	1,090,386
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Sherry Garland has written more than thirty books and won more than forty awards, including an American Library Association Notable recognition and a Reading Rainbow book selection. She enjoys writing about history and created her Voices Series to bring a personal note to pivotal moments in America’s past. Her writing career began as early as high school, when she won first place for her essay entitled “Why I Love Texas.” This essay later served as inspiration for her much-acclaimed children’s book Voices of the Alamo, which was named to the Children’s Book Council’s Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People list and chosen as a Scholastic Reading Counts! selection.

Garland received her BA in French and English from the University of Texas at Arlington and is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Although she began her writing career by publishing adult novels, Garland quickly transitioned to children’s and young adult literature. She has spoken at many schools across Texas and the United States and traveled to Asia three times to speak at international schools.

A fifth-generation Texan, she and her husband reside in Bryan, Texas, amidst the wildlife of the countryside.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 3-6-"They promise to pay me thirteen dollars a month. More money than that I never saw at once." This poetic narrative evokes the emotion of emancipation and the courage and endurance of a newly freed man who joins the U.S. Army, protecting new settlements from Indians and bandits while earning a living, an education, and the respect of his country. He worries about family left at home and takes pride in a paycheck, finding a new life but facing loneliness in a life lived apart from loved ones. "-Sally says she hopes my fingers freeze off so I can't sign up for five more years." Paired with watercolor illustrations, each spread echoes the daily life of a buffalo soldier. This brief story both informs and pulls at the heartstrings of readers as the retired man compares his experiences to those of his son fighting in World War II, while readers view the shadow of his former comrades riding past his porch rocker.-Mary Elam, Forman Elementary School, Plano, TX Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Eloquent for all its brevity, this fictional soldier's reminiscence traces nearly the whole real history of the Buffalo Soldiers, from the Indian Wars to WWII, and is reinforced by both a meaty introduction and a closing bibliography. No longer a slave, but seeing no future in sharecropping, the narrator writes, "I walk to New Orleans and put by X on the line / when I hear tell the U.S. Army is looking for young Negro men / to serve on the Western frontier." Through the course of a decades-long career, he faces challenges from a drill sergeant "mean as a skunk" to attacks by bandits and Apache while escorting surveyors and settlers, recalling good times and bad, and even a charge up San Juan Hill in the Spanish American War. He closes with an old man's ruminations on the familiar sounding complaints of his grandson, who writes from another war about mean sergeants and bad food: "I just have to smile, and nod my head. / You see, once I was a soldier, too." Himler's full-bleed western scenes add proper amounts of drama, touches of humor and natural-looking details to this engrossing tribute. (Picture book/nonfiction. 8-10)

Kirkus Reviews