REVOLUTIONARY ANNA

An overlooked real-life hero of the American Revolution gets her due in Lawson’s illustrated children’s book.

There’s more to Anna Stone than meets the eye of her young grandchildren visiting her home in 1825. They see her as merely an unexciting older relative, but when it’s time to tell a story one cold January night, they’re surprised when their grandfather, Benjamin, asks her to “Tell them about the time you saved General Washington’s job and made sure we won the American Revolution!” Anna was a wife and mother to three children when Benjamin and her other male relatives left to fight in the Continental Army. Like other women, she did her part for the war effort by helping with what would have ordinarily been the men’s tasks at home, as well as making clothing for the troops and boycotting British goods. Her role in the war would take her far from home, however, after Washington’s troops found, upon arrival at Valley Forge, near Philadelphia, in 1778, that the British had destroyed their supply sources. Anna knew that Benjamin was among the soldiers stranded, so she volunteered to bring supplies to them from Virginia on horseback. She’s tasked by a congressman to bring a secret message for Washington, as well, and is hunted by “a frightening-looking fellow” as she rides to Pennsylvania. Lawson’s novel, her first for children, follows Answering Liberty’s Call (2021), her recounting of Anna’s thrilling and dangerous true story for an adult audience. (In an author’s note, Lawson intriguingly notes that she’s related to the real-life Anna Stone.) This book could serve well as a brief, educational introduction to the role of women in the Revolutionary War for elementary school-age readers. Some sections seem oversimplified, such as the claim that Anna was able to bring on her horse, alone, enough supplies to “stretch” multiple soldiers’ “rations for weeks.” Coriell’s full-color cartoon illustrations of the action are peppered throughout but add little to the story.

An often informative introduction to an underdiscussed historical figure.