March Toward the Thunder by Joseph Bruchac

At school, the other Creek boys quickly take Cal under their wings. And Pop has decided to send Cal to a government boarding school for Native Americans in Oklahoma called the Challagi School. So Pop tells Cal something he never knew before: Pop is actually a Creek Indian, which means Cal is too. But then Pop has to go to Washington, DC-some of his fellow veterans are marching for their government checks, and Pop wants to make sure he gets his due-and Cal can''t go with him. Cal likes being a 'knight of the road' with Pop, even if they''re broke.

Bruchac interjects a substantial amount of orchestrated serendipity with historical figures, but on the whole, the blend of military history and human interest will keep readers thoroughly involved in Louis’s drama.A boy discovers his Native American heritage in this Depression-era tale of identity and friendship by the author of Code Talker It''s 1932, and twelve-year-old Cal Black and his Pop have been riding the rails for years after losing their farm in the Great Depression. No one quite knows how to categorize the bronzed soldier in their section (“You a mulatter or a Injun?”), and the confusion and good-natured teasing rankle Louis he manages to recognize, though, that this is an ungainly first encounter for all of them, and the extreme demands of war quickly bond the young men with unshakable loyalty. Although accounts of individual battles are riveting, it is Louis’s relationship with his messmates that shapes the novel.

Bruchac reconstructs the Fighting 69th’s battles in the closing year of the Civil War through the experience of the fictional underage teen, loosely based on Bruchac’s own great-grandfather. Regardless of motivations he doesn’t completely understand himself, Louis is now slogging through Northern Virginia in a deadly game of hurry up and wait, alternating frustrating periods of suspended hostilities with fierce engagement with General Lee’s forces. It was probably the respect associated with the uniform, rather than the salary or even the sign-on bonus, that convinced Louis Nolette to succumb to the enticements of the Union recruiter and join the Irish Brigade in the Civil War, even though few could lay less claim to Irish heritage than the Abenaki teen relocated to the U.S.

March Toward the Thunder by Joseph Bruchac