Sarah Emma Edmonds Was a Great Pretender by Carrie Jones

Sara Emma Edmonds really was a great pretender. Her father had wanted boys and was very disappointed in Sara because she wasn't one. Sara was treated badly and because of this she spent her childhood pretending to be a boy. She ran away to get away from the abuse of her father and joined the army to fight in the Civil war, still pretending, she joins as a "male" nurse to take care of the soldiers fighting and dieing. When a friend of hers dies she decides she needs to find a way to help the soldiers another way, to keep them from fighting in the first place. She decides to be a spy for the Union Army and pretends to be a male slave, a washer woman and many other people and she becomes good at her job. This is a kids book which touches on something that kids rarely read about in the their history books, that of the role of women in the Civil war as nurses, soldiers, and spies. This would be a great educational, and fascinating book for any kid studying the Civil War or women's studies and great for a teacher or homeschooler wanting a little something extra in their teachings of the Civil War.