Mare's War »

In addition to Mare's War, Coretta Scott King Honor winner TANITA DAVIS has written one other YA novel for Knopf, A la Carte. She was inspired to write Mare's War while researching her family's history: "I discovered an America I had never seen," said Davis, and it is that America her book brings to life.

Meet Mare, a World War II veteran and a grandmother like no other. She was once a willful teenager who escaped her less than perfect life in the deep South and lied about her age to join the African American Battalion of the Women's Army Corps. Now she is driving her granddaughters—two willful teenagers in their own rite—on a cross-country road trip. The girls are initially skeptical of Mare's flippy wigs and stilletos, but they soon find themselves entranced by the story she has to tell, and readers will be too.

Told in alternating chapters, half of which follow Mare through her experiences as a WAC and half of which follow Mare and her granddaughters on the road in the present day, this novel introduces readers to a larger-than-life character and a fascinating chapter in African American history.

VOYA

During a road trip from California to Florida with their grandmother Mare, sisters Talitha and Octavia hear about Mare's extraordinary history. In 1944, at age seventeen, Mare ran away from her backwater Alabama town and joined the Women's Army Corps. After lying about her age and passing a written exam, Mare went on to become a member of the 6888th African American battalion. Through basic training, she gained physical and emotional strength. During the course of the war, she served in the United States, Scotland, and France. She tells her story through oral narrative and with letters she has written to her sister. Although she does not glamorize any part of army life, Mare narrates both her good and bad times in the service. Mare is strong, stubborn, and self-reliant—traits the reader can see and admire in her granddaughters. Readers may be surprised to learn about the level of discrimination Mare faced for being a woman as well as African American, even in the armed forces. Davis gives both major and minor character very distinct traits, making them memorable. She also has an ear for dialect and the speech of the 1940s, although the modern dialogue feels stilted in places. By focusing on vivid characterizations rather than long descriptions, Davis creates a work of historical fiction that even non-historians can enjoy. Reviewer: Carlisle K. Webber