cover image Frank Thompson: Her Civil War Story

Frank Thompson: Her Civil War Story

Bryna Stevens. MacMillan Publishing Company, $14 (144pp) ISBN 978-0-02-788185-1

Stevens soundly advises readers to make up their own minds about the accuracy of each episode in the life of ``Frank Thompson,'' in reality Emma Edmonds (1841-1898), a Canadian-born woman who ran away from an arranged marriage, disguised herself as a man and served in the Union Army. Emma is a nurse at first, but a flair for mimicry allows her to work as a mail carrier and then as a spy, and her identity is never fully discovered. She becomes a true hero, saving lives and even donating proceeds from her bestselling 1865 autobiography to sick soldiers, but this adaptation of her life is somehow flat, functioning as neither a war story nor one of narrow escape. Stevens' briefer treatment of a similar heroine ( Deborah Sampson Goes to War ) held more excitement. Illustrated with photos and engravings from Edmonds's own book. Ages 10-14. (Oct.)