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Buffalo Soldier

by Tanya Landman

Interest age: 13+
Reading age: 11+

Published by Walker Books, 2014

  • Historical

About this book

Plantation slave Charley Smith is eleven when America blows itself apart, with Abraham Lincoln's decision to prohibit slavery. Charley thinks a slice of heaven is coming her way. But it's a taste of hell. Her surrogate mother is raped and lynched. Charley is left to burn in the cellar. But she survives, stealing the clothes from a dead man's back to enlist in the army. But clearing land and killing red Indians doesn't seem right. Nor does being a man when Jim, the Indian tracker, joins up…

A moving, gritty and convincing teenage historical drama where love and loyalty take on prejudice and greed.

*Contains scenes of violence and rape

About the author

Tanya studied English Literature at university, and then worked in a bookshop running the children’s section, an arts centre and a zoo. Since 1992 she has been a writer of books for all ages – including adventures, retellings of Greek myths, detective stories, graphic novels, and historical fiction set in Britain and North and South America. Buffalo Soldier, published by Walker Books, won the Carnegie Medal in 2015. She lives in north Devon with her two sons, Isaac and Jack, Edgar – a ferocious Siamese cat, and two eternally optimistic Labradors, Hobson and Sally.

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