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ReviewIn spare, closely biblical prose, Gary Paulsen writes of the horrors of combat in a Civil War novella that puts a powerful, more contemporary spun on Stephen Crane’s classic The Red Badge of Courage. Based on the life of a real boy, it tells the story of Charley Goddard, who lies his way into the Union Army at the age of 15. Charley has never been anyplace beyond Winona, Minnesota, and thinks war would be a outstanding adventure. And it is–at first–as his regiment marches off through cheering crowds and pretty, flag-waving girls. But then comes the battle. Charley screams, “Make it stop now!” disbelieving that anything so horrid could be real. Paulsen is unsparing in the details of what in truth happens on the battlefield: the living men abruptly blown into pieces, the intense feelings of suffering and fear, the noise and terror, the stinking corpses. After a good deal of battles, Charley is wounded and sent home an old man before he is 20, his will to live destroyed by combat fatigue–leaving him with a “soldier’s heart.” Paulsen has received the Margaret A. Edwards Award, the ALAN Award, and assorted Newbery Honor awards for former work, but this superb, little masterwork transcends any of his earlier titles in it is remarkable, unforgettable intensity and power. (Ages 12 to 15) –Patty Campbell From Publishers WeeklyAddressing the most rudimentary themes of life and death, the versatile Paulsen develops a searing antiwar story. He bases his protagonist, Charley Goddard, on an actual Civil War soldier, a 15-year-old from Minnesota who lied with regards to his age and ended up taking part in most of the war’s major battles. At initial Paulsen’s Charley is fired up by patriotic slogans and his own naive excitement; in a rare intrusion into the narrative, the author makes it clear that ending slavery was not the impetus: “Never did they speak of slavery. Just when it comes to the wrongheadedness of the Southern ‘crackers’ and how they had to instruct Johnny Reb a lesson.” But Charley’s basi battle?Bull Run?immediately disabuses him of his notions regarding honor and glory. A few sparely written passages describe the terror of the gunfire and the smoke from the cannons. Interwoven with these descriptions, a brilliant, fast-moving evocation of Charley’s thoughts shows the boy’s shocked realization of the price of war, his sheer certainty that he will die and his sudden understanding of the complex forces that prevent him from fleeing. Details from the historical record scorch the reader’s memory: congressmen fetch their families to picnic and watch the fighting that basi day at Bull Run; soldiers pile the bodies of the dead into a five-foot-high wall to protect themselves from a winter wind. By the time Charley is in the long run struck down, at Gettysburg, he has seen it all: “At last he was right, at last he was done, at last he was dead.” He is not in fact dead, but a victim of “soldier’s heart,” specified in an eloquent foreword as a contemporaneous term for what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder. Paulsen wages his own effort for the audience’s hearts and minds strategically and with great success. Elsewhere, as in The Rifle, he has told stories in service to a message; here the message follows from the story ineluctably. Charley comes all over totally human, both his vulnerabilities and amount of energy getting more pronounced as the novel progresses. Warfare, too, emerges complexly-while a lesser writer might try to instruct readers to shun war by dint of the protagonist’s unfathomed disgust, Paulsen compounds the horrors of the battlefield by demonstrating how they trigger Charley’s own bloodlust. Charley cannot recover from his years of war; in a littler but more hopeful way, neither may the audience. Paulsen’s storytelling is so psychologically unfeigned that readers will feel they have lived through Charley’s experiences. Ages 12-up. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library JournalGrade 7 Up-Charley Goddard, 15, leaves his Minnesota farm to enlist in the Union army in 1861. An almost festive train ride to the South soon gives way to the harrowing realities of war. Paulsen pulls no punches, rendering the young man’s experiences in matter-of-fact prose that accentuates the horror. The third-person narrative sticks to Charley’s point of view, relating his prompt sensations and the simple ways he tries to come to terms with the bloodshed. The boy soon faces the inevitability of his awful circumstance but never loses his fear and confusion. After four major battles, he is gravely wounded at Gettysburg. A final chapter shows him at 21, joyless, hopeless, and contemplating suicide. Paulsen’s introduction explains that having a “soldier’s heart” is the Civil War equivalent of shell shock and post-traumatic stress disorder. Charley’s experiences show the ravaging effect of war in a touchingly personal way. There are unsensationalized descriptions of violence and chaotic battle scenes, but the most powerful images come from peculiar details. After one conflict, Charley tearfully positions a dying boy’s rifle so that he may kill himself. On another occasion, Charley helps a doctor keep the wounded warm by building a windbreak out of dead bodies. The young man’s quiet desperation at the end of the book makes it clear that not one thing good has come out of Charley’s war. The grim violence and bleak solution may put off a great deal of readers, but the novel succeeds as a fiery indictment of war and as a unforgettable depiction of an individual. Steven Engelfried, West Linn Public Library, OR Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Charley The Soldier Pic

Charley The Soldier Photo

Charley The Soldier Pic

Most helpful customer reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
�Soldier�s Heart�, a perfect example of Gary Paulsen�s merit
By Fahim MD Tazwar
Although the amount of books based on Civil War is huge, very few books have talked about the life of simple soldiers in detail in order to know how the soldiers of the Civil War felt in the war. Gary Paulsen, a gifted writer, has filled up that absence quite successfully by only one book, named Soldier’s Heart. Based on the Civil War experience of a real boy Charley, he brings the worst nightmare of the war into the pages of this book. Charley Goddard, a hard worker, soft hearted, adventure loving fifteen years boy has never been any place except his birthplace, Winona, Minnesota. When the war begins, the superficial images of the parade, uniform, pretty girls excite him and lead him to join in the Union army, lying about his age, since men under eighteen aren’t allowed to go to fight. But as the harsh reality becomes clear, when he gets in the war, his all images vapor like heated camphor. He hasn’t even thought about how terrible the war could be in reality. In his first battle his mind cries and prays to God, “I am not supposed to see these, GOD. No person supposes to see these. How can you let these happen?” But as the time passes Charley changes totally. He participates in all major battles of Civil War and finally gets wounded in the battle of Gettysburg. Gary Paulsen shows how a man’s choice or mind changes when he participates in a war and uses Charley, as an example, who likes the shining revolver after war instead of other pretty things that he has liked before gets in the war. Paulsen’s tiny details about battlefields help realizing how horrible the Civil War’s battles were and also let the reader feel the way characters of the book have felt. Although this book is short and does not clearly describe some events, worth is beyond the price in currency. I have no doubt, if you start reading this book, you won’t stop yourself until you reach to end and I, myself, am its great evidence. I highly recommend this book to those who are studying Civil War, especially the high school students, because some places of that story require better quality of understanding. The students who are new with English literature will be helped by this book to understand the easy level of written English.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Disappointing
By Robert B. Weaver
The 1st Minn Volunteers are one of the most famous regiments of the Civil War, suffering tremendous losses to save the Federal line on the second day at Gettysburg. I’d read Mr Paulsen before and was very excited to see how he handled the Civil War. Let me begin with the things he does well: Charley learns quickly and stunningly that war is not picnicing and glory. He becomes hard and callous, but at the same time struggles with the disconnect within himself. He also struggles with what we now call PTSD, which is the point of the book. I’m surprised other reviewers haven’t given this point a nod, since Paulsen himself talks about it in the forward. The battle sequences are grim and realistic, if a little cinematic. They felt more like a video game walkthough than a literary experience. What he doesn’t do well: Paulsen did his homework on the Civil War, just not enough of it. He can tell us what uniform the 1st Minn wore at the beginning of the war accurately, but fails to put any correct commands in the mouths of any of his commanders. There is also some dialogue which seems more like modern reenactment talk than documentable period vernacular. He describes how to fire a muzzleloading musket, but uses incorrect drill commands in the battle scenes. The scene in which the wounded soldier commits suicide with his own musket is moving; it’s also not accurate. There is no evidence to support this reconstruction. The chronology is problematic: the “first battle” is 1st Bull Run (Manassas), which for some reason he seems to believe was a multi-day battle. The “third battle” is some un-named but horrific conflict. The map shows it in eastern Maryland. It seems to feel like Antietam (Sharpsburg), but, if this is so, it’s incorrectly located on the map. And why not name it? The conclusion I’m led to with an incorrect location and no name is that it didn’t actually occur. Finally, there is Gettysburg. The 1st Minn. action here is relatively well described, especially for the young adult audience. Here, for some unexplained reason, the war narrative ends, although as we know, the war continued.
Most troubling is the last chapter, set on a summer day in 1867. Perhaps this is a spoiler alert: but has no one noticed that young Charley commits suicide with that Confederate revolver he took to his solitary picnic? This is a tragic and hopeless ending for a book which could have much to say to young people about getting help to deal with tragedy and trauma. As a story resolution, “Soldier’s Heart” becomes a grim story with a bleak ending. I would be extremely reluctant to recommend this book as a school project for this reason, unless the instructor takes a great deal of time to explore other healthier alternatives to resolve PTSD or other forms of hopelessness young adults face. There’s much this book could have been, unfortunately, it only partially succeeds at all of them.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
What A Great Book!
By A
A Soldiers Heart is a book that I would recommend to other readers not only because of the great details that Gary Paulsen put into it, but because you relive the Civil War. I liked this book because it’s about a boy that is 15 years old, Charley Gaddard. He lied about his age and joined the Minnesota Volunteers. Gary Pualsen is a wonderful writer, and Soldiers Heart is one of his best novels. The gore is not all that great, but you get used to it. This is a great book to read if you are learning about the Civil War. Charley was pretty brave for going into the Civil War at the age of 15. What a big task.

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