This is yet another of the books I had to read for my Children's Literature class. My younger cousin had to read it last year for her fifth-grade class and she kept telling me how much she hated it. Naturally, this made me not look forward to reading it.
As I read it, however, I kept waiting for it to get "awful", but it never really did. I actually kind of enjoyed it! The writing was brilliant and it really made me feel as if I was inside the mind of Bud. The descriptions were well-done and did a great job of sucking me into the time period. Bud, himself, was interesting and you couldn't help but root for the little lonely, driven boy. His story is sad while remaining hopeful. It was obviously a story from the heart and that is what really made it enjoyable for me to read. Though my cousin disliked it (why, exactly, she couldn't ever explain to me), I still recommend this book for the fifth-sixth-grade age group because this is a book where fiction and reality blend together to make for a pleasant read.