LUCY’S CAVE

During Grant’s assault on Vicksburg, its townspeople literally fled to the hills, living in caves during the 47 days of the siege. Many years later, Lucy McRae wrote about her experiences as an 11-year-old girl; Winnick bases her fictionalized story on that account. Lucy lives in the caves with her family and many others; they eat what they can—cornmeal, rice, sweet-potato coffee. Lucy is annoyed by the Reverend’s daughter Liddy, who makes something of a pest of herself, but she is taken by Liddy’s pony and her ability to draw silhouettes on the cave walls. When the families are at last able to return to Vicksburg, Lucy hopes Liddy’s family can stay with them. The overlong text is stilted, rendering even the climactic shelling of the cave distant and unexciting; the stiff and primitive-looking oil paintings match the equally leaden dialogue: “I’m happy you’re safe, Papa.” In an unfortunate textual elision, the narration refers to the families’ “servants,” but the author’s note makes clear that those servants were slaves. (Picture book. 6-8)