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SYBIL LUDINGTON'S RIDE by Erick Berry

SYBIL LUDINGTON'S RIDE

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Pub Date: March 7th, 1952
Publisher: Viking

Historical fiction with the color, characterization and pace of a first rate adventure story. Sybil Ludington's ride is local history in the reaches between Danbury and York state line, where her thirty mile ride at night -- through a storm-carried word of the approach of the British, the burning of Danbury, the threat to the outlying farms, and the need for the scattered farmers -- home on leave for the planting season- to muster to their own defense. Sybil and Rebecca, her impulsive, tomboyish younger sister, were real girls and come alive in this story of the Spring of '77, while their father was off fighting the British, and they were doing their share of a man's work on their uncle's farm, with a few setbacks when ""Ricky"" goes off on some mad tack of her own. The yearling colt is a vital figure -- and a personality on his own -- in the story. One could wish the line sketches had been limited to the decorative chapter heads. The unprepossessing full page illustrations are a detriment to the book's appeal to early teens -- and no addition to the format in any case.