Across Five Aprils

I read this book when I was a young adult.  I think it was in Jr. High.  It had very little impact.

I finished this book again last night.  It was 2am when I closed it and put it away.  I sobbed.

I actually started and re-started this book several times in the past several weeks.  It was small print, not the easiest language, and I kept forgetting to put a bookmark in so I'd always end up reading stuff I'd read before. 

But once I gave it more than the few minutes I'd had here and there, I was captured. 

It is a beautiful story.  A human story.  A story about people with character.  It goes so deeply beyond mere entertainment. 

It is a story that can make things like names of Civil War battles and generals seem interesting.

It is a story about a time that seems so different than ours and yet so much the same. 

Our world still needs boys who want to be men.  Our world still needs people who follow conscience despite opposition.  Our world needs people who can reject the temptation for revenge and reap the rewards of peace and friendship.  Our world still needs people who are willing to fight even though war has no easy answers.  Our world needs people who make decisions based on what is right.  Our world needs parents who will do the hard work to love and teach and train.

I've heard them called classics, whole books, living books.  I prefer the latter because this kind of book lives within me.  It awakens and enlivens good things deep inside me that maybe I wasn't aware of or maybe they were just dormant.  I absorb the characters and desire to take on their good character.  I become a different and hopefully better character myself.