girlinblue

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Book Reviews and Synopses

Girl In Blue

Ann Rinaldi

Rinaldi, Ann. Girl in Blue. Scholastic Press. New York, NY. 2001.

Girl in Blue, by the author Ann Rinaldi, is a fiction book about a young girl who pretends to be a boy to serve for the army, to raise money for her family.

Girl in Blue, is a book about a girl named Stephanie who’s brother just got home from the war badly injured. Stephanie’s family has no income besides what her brother was bringing in from fighting in the war. Stephanie’s mom was busy taking care of Stephanie’s brother so she couldn’t go to work.

Stephanie realized that she had to do something that would help her support her family. Stephanie decides to dress up like her brother, and go sign up for war. There where many different procedures that Stephanie had to go through, she had to steal her brothers clothing and had to sew them to make them fit her, and go to day jobs to make enough money to buy shoes that she can wear that would fit her.

When Stephanie finally goes to sign up for the war they tell her that they found someone else to take her brothers job and that there aren’t any more military positions open. Stephanie leaves the office depressed because she spent so long trying to get ready for her military position and it was all for nothing. Then, suddenly, the lady who told her that all of the military positions were taken said “John! I take that back! I just heard from the head chief and seventeen men just passed away and he needs new men now! Are you still interested, you would have to leave in four days.”

Stephanie goes off to the war telling her mother that she was going to visit her grandmother, and said that she would be back in three months. Three months later the war ends and Stephanie helped win the war! She comes home to tell her family, and her family is in shock! “I can’t believe you would do something like that just to help provide food and shelter for us!” said her mom. The last words in the book are, “How could I not! You are my family and I would do anything for my family!”.

The end of Girl in Blue is good, but it’s not very descriptive and the book is kind of bland. Stephanie got enough money to provide for her family for over a year and took other day jobs so she could support her family for as long as she needed to. Unless you're planning on going to war, this book really isn’t worth reading.

2 out of 5 stars

Contributed by A. Unger

March 22, 2012.