WE PLAYED MARBLES

A narrative--strikingly similar to Eve Bunting's The Blue and the Gray (1996)--about two boys playing on a former Civil War battlefield; it is suffused with nostalgia and complete with a seed of truth, explained in an author's note. ""We played marbles on our Papaw's farm, on the high dirt mounds of old Fort Craig left over from the Civil War."" The two boys, perhaps seven and nine, refer to historical events such as a colonel falling from a horse, which Andreasen depicts dreamily in a cloud formation. In a view of the pond, readers see the reflection of the soldiers who once fought there. Papaw gently leads the boys away from their war games, and back to shooting marbles--with an antique round bullet as the shooter. The text demands awareness of the war and will elicit questions, so adults who share the book with children may wish to come armed with even more information than is provided in Seymour's helpful note.