Mom says, let’s read Ann Rinaldi’s story based on the legend of Tempe Wick.
The Revolutionary War is raging. General Wayne’s soldiers are freezing, underpaid, and resentful. Whispers of mutiny abound. A stone’s throw from the restless camp, Tempe Wick wages her own battle for survival. Despite her efforts, she fears she won’t be able to feed her family, care for her ailing mother, or maintain her farm for long. As the whispers get louder, the soldiers get bolder. Mutiny is imminent. And Tempe faces a gut-wrenching decision: Should she join the revolt? (review by goodreads)
And answer these questions in a different color. Entire sentences and correct spelling (does dribbling count in basketball?)
1. Civil wars divide families. How has it divided the families in this story?
2. Abraham tells Mary that compromise is a necessary commodity, but not all the characters agree. How do Mary, Tempe, and General Wayne feel about compromise? How do you feel about it? When should you compromise, and when should you stand firm?
3. What does Mary mean when she says that everyone is part and parcel of the whole of their life experiences? In what ways have your life experiences determined who you are now?
4. Mary tells Henry, “Sometimes it helps to air old ills in the sunlight.” What does she mean?
5. Tempe believes that a persons”s motives do not matter as much as their actions. Do you think one is more important than the other? Why?
6. In what ways might Henry’s living as a lunatic make his life easier? Harder?
7. Abraham advises Mary that “those closest to the problem cannot see the solution.” Do you think this is true? Who can you turn to when you have a problem?
8. In his letter to Mary, Abraham says,”I choose to look at the past fondly and to the future with hope.” Why might he choose to see things this way? How should he handle his unhappy memories?
Eleven-year-old Harriet Whitehead is an outsider in her own family. She feels accepted and important only when she is entrusted to write letters for her blind stepmother. Then Nat Turner, a slave preacher, arrives on her family’s plantation and Harriet befriends him, entranced by his gentle manner and eloquent sermons about an all-forgiving God. When Nat asks Harriet for a map of the county to help him spread the word, she draws it for him—wanting to be part of something important. But the map turns out to be the missing piece that sets Nat’s secret plan in motion and makes Harriet an unwitting accomplice to the bloodiest slave uprising in U.S. history.Award-winning historical novelist Ann Rinaldi has created a bold portrait of an ordinary young girl thrust in to a situation beyond her control,
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