American Patriots

[BookReviewEditor]

American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military from the Revolution to Desert Storm
By, Gail Buckly and adapted for young people by, Tonya Bolden
Joseph
I would recommend this book to teenagers in grades 6-8, regardless of gender. Anyone who has taken an American history class will know a lot of the information that is written in this book. American Patriots is a quick read (219 pages) and is very easy to understand. I would rate it a 3 (1-4, 4 being best).

This book covers the following wars: The Revolutionary War, The War of 1812, The Civil War, Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, World War I, Spanish Civil War, World War II, The Korean Conflict, Vietnam, and Operation Desert Storm. More information is written about modern wars (past 70 years), then is written for older wars. Eighty-four pages are written on Wars within the past 70 years. This is compared to 118 pages covering 150 years.
One of the strong points of this book is that the author makes many personal connections involving her ancestors. Another positive aspect is that Gail Buckley tells the story of the war, and then goes back and says how the Blacks contributed to the American cause in that war. A third part of this book that I liked was that it was historically accurate. I did research on information I thought was questionable, but everything I checked was correct. The only major weakness of this book was that I knew a lot of the information on the wars from American History, and I could predict was going to happen next. In that respect this book was somewhat boring. Overall, I would suggest this book to a friend.