Product Description
In June 1861, when the Civil War began, Charley Goddard enlisted in the First Minnesota Volunteers. He was 15. He didn't know what a "shooting war" meant or what he was fighting for. But he didn't want to miss out on a great adventure.
The "shooting war" turned out to be the horror of combat and the wild luck of survival; how it feels to cross a field toward the enemy, waiting for fire. When he entered the service he was a boy. When he came back he was different; he was only 19, but he was a man with "soldier's heart," later known as "battle fatigue."
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Amazon.com
In spare, almost biblical prose, Gary Paulsen writes of the horrors of combat in a Civil War novella that puts a powerful, more contemporary spin 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 great 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 horrible could be real. Paulsen is unsparing in the details of what actually happens on the battlefield: the living men suddenly blown into pieces, the agony and fear, the noise and terror, the stinking corpses. After many 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 several Newbery Honor awards for previous work, but this superb, small masterpiece transcends any of his earlier titles in its remarkable, memorable intensity and power. (Ages 12 to 15) --Patty Campbell
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 hard to explain
This book is a true story and it says so in the authors note. This book is very sad, interesting, and violent. It is about a 16 year old boy who heard of a shooting war. His name was Charley. He wanted to enlist for the army but they said that you must be 18 to go and enlist for the army that would take place in the shooting war. Charley lies about his age and gets in without question. He gets training and fights in the army and in the battles he fought in he learns what it really is like to be in the army. He learned that you always think you're going to die. He learned that if someone is having a slow and painful death because of a wound they will want to shoot themselves. Charley learned a lot in the army and that is why this book is called soldiers heart. My favorite part is the whole book because it is so interesting and sad. I don't have a least favorite part. This book is good for people that like stories that can show them a lesson.
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MFMS students' review ( lobizao2 )
After reading it in class, this is what the MFMS's 8th grade Language Arts thought of the book:
"We liked the story because some parts of the story were really detailed and seems like you were actually there. Well, not really. It was easy to read because there was not so much hard words, which made it easier and better."
--Colleen and Jessica.
"I liked the story because it was extremely detailed with words to explain everything that happened. The bigger words make it a better book to understand more."
--Tom, Desirae, Juan
"I liked the book because it teach me about history. I think it was kind of hard to read, because all the big words. I think the big words make it hard to read and not one could understand it."
--Man, Diana, Giovanna
"We kinds liked the book because it talked about the war and we wanted to know about the war and the book helped a lot. The book was kind of hard to read, but easy to at the same time. It kind of had big words, but it was better to read the book that way. The book was very interesting. The book was good."
--Kara, Maria R., Maria Z., Angelica
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 A Teenager in the Civil War ( a1luciano )
In 1861 Charley is fifteen years old, living on a farm in Minnesota with his mother and little brother. Everyone has heard the rumor that there is to be a war, with those in the North fighting to stop the Southern rebels from doing damage to the country. No one is quite sure if the war is really going to happen, but Charley is determined to be a part of it if it is.
He convinces his mother that he can handle himself as a soldier and tells her the eleven dollars a month he'll be paid will help her out, and she agrees to let him go. He signs up, lying about his age so they will let him into the army, and begins his training.
At first things are horribly boring. The volunteer military spends much of its time sitting around, doing drills that don't use up their ammunition, and eating really bad food. Charley is considering deserting and simply going home, when finally his unit marches into battle.
Their first battle is a bloodbath--his unit tries to march across an open field while rebel soldiers shoot at them from above. Charley isn't sure what he thought a shooting war would be like, but it was certainly nothing like this. As the war continues and Charley is a part of more and more battles, he learns what war really is, and sees more than his share of the horror of it.
I liked that war wasn't glamorized at all in this book--the narrator spoke of the boredom between battles and the horror of the battles themselves. Nothing was made out to be fun about it. I also liked that Charley was so shocked and couldn't get over what he had seen. He was just a kid when he went into war and it wouldn't have been realistic for him to handle it well.
However, this book was a little too simplistic. It didn't give any of the nuances of Charley's thoughts and feelings, and didn't explore the feelings of anyone except this one main character. I would have liked a bit more depth.
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Charley is a freak (i think)
I definitely recommend this book to all readers. Gary Paulsen does a great job in showing how Charley feels that he will certainly die, and how he changes from a happy farmer to a man that will kill to stay alive. This was one of the greatest historical fiction books that I have ever read because of all the amazing events that actually took place. For example, Charley and another man use dead bodies to build a wall to stop a vicious wind. This book had a lot of surprises, like when Charley is hit and wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg. I couldn't wait to turn the page because of all these horrendous and shocking surprises. Because this book is only 102 pages, it makes for an astonishing quick read.
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A kid at war. ( kmquigg )
As already stated, this is a fictionalized story of a young 15 year Minnesota boy who fought in the Civil War. Paulsen takes liberties in relating the short life of Charley Goddard. Goddard participated in many major battles of the Civil War such as Bull Run and Gettysburg. He shows the cost of war on the youths that fight it by relating the term soldier's heart. A soldier's heart becomes hardened by the experience of death in battle. He no longer fears death, viewing it as a way to meet the soldiers who proceeded him in death.
This is a story detailing the cruelity of battle. Battle hardens our soldiers and puts severe strains on their mentail peace. This should be remembered in terms of the cost are soldiers are now going through.
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