The Last Silk Dress

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Summary: The all time best book!
Review: This has got to be the best book I have ever read. I would highly recomend it to anyone. I couldn't put this book down once I started reading. "The Last Silk Dress" is a wonderful story about a 14 year old girl named Susan who is living in the capital of the confederacy during the Civil War. She is so head strong. Susan feels she is a true confederate, and thinks she knows what the war is about. During the course of the book she unfolds many secrets. She learns about the war, and about herself in the process. Ann Rinaldi wrote a winner, an I hope she writes a sequal.

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Summary: Book Review
Review: This book is about a girl named Susan Dobson Chilmark, and her mother is abusive. Her dad can't win an argument with her mom and she has a long lost brother that is then discovered later in the book. She and her best friend weren't allowed to be friends anymore. Her family had a reputation of being troubled and very crazy.
To win back a good reputation, she volunteers to collect silk dresses for the making of a balloon.With the help of her brother she was able to collect dresses. It was very interesting how and where she gets her dresses. That is for you to read.
The better thing is that this is also a love story. How did Ann manage to throw in a love story in the middle of the chaos of the life of Susan Dobson Chilmark? It is remarkable, and the ending to it is the most triumphant, sweetest ending I could ever read. This is a very exciting story, and I could never put it down until I finished!

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Summary: I WISH IT WAS LONGER!!!!!!
Review: This book is an awesome book! It is a great way to display the souths point of view in the Civil War. The coolest person I think is her brother. He shows her how the souths idea of slavery is wrong. Also,she meets this really tough dicision between her brother and her admirer. You definatly should read this bok!!!!!!!!!!!

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Summary: A great book!
Review: The Last Silk Dress by Ann Rinaldi was a very enjoyable novel. The main character, Susan Chilmark, is a fourteen-year-old girl growing up in Richmond during the Civil War. Her father is off at war, and she lives with her crazy mother who often beats her. One day, Susan accidentally ends up meeting her older brother, Lucien, for the first time. Lucien had a terrible fight with his father before Susan was born, and he left his home. Lucien is very unpopular in Richmond because he doesn't believe in the Confederacy's cause and refuses to fight in the war. In my opinion, Lucien was right not to fight for a cause he didn't believe in. However, many people feel Lucien is a traitor, and Susan's mother forbids her to see him. Lucien and Susan meet secretly sometimes, and during one of these meetings Susan and Lucien discuss the hot air balloons the Yankees use to spy on confederate troops. At this point, Susan gets the idea to make a balloon for the confederacy using the silk dresses of women in Richmond. Lucien eventually agrees to help, and Susan is able to collect enough dresses for a balloon to be made. Susan was very clever to come up with the idea of making a balloon from silk dresses. Shortly after the balloon is made, Susan's father is killed in battle. Susan's mother then reveals many family secrets about Susan's father, Lucien, and the family's slave, Sallie. Susan becomes very upset upon hearing these secrets and runs away to live with Lucien. In my opinion, Susan made a good decision when she went to live with Lucien, because her mother was cruel and beat her. At Lucien's house Susan is introduced to a friend of her brother's who is a Yankee, and she falls in love with him. Then, Susan makes a crucial decision that changes her life. Susan significantly changed throughout the novel. At the beginning of the novel, Susan was an innocent girl who believed very strongly in the Confederate cause. Later in the novel when she sees the number of lives the war has claimed, she isn't sure she completely believes in the cause anymore. She even becomes angry at the South for fighting in a war that caused many deaths. Susan matures and realizes that war isn't something to be taken lightly; it is very tragic and claims the lives of many people. As Susan transforms, the reader is able to see the war from her point of view.

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Summary: A Wonderful Journey to the Past
Review: Tug of War. It's a game where one team struggles with all its might to drag the other team to its side of the field. When two people begin to play "Tug of War" with your heart, a feeling of hopelessness surrounds you as your heart "stretches" between the two people before it snaps to one end. The power of The Last Silk Dress is so intense that Susan's thoughts seem to pull the reader in half as he/she wonders which way to turn. The Last Silk Dress provides an emotional story that will hold you within the binding of the book for hours to come. This historical fiction novel portrays the life of a fourteen-year-old girl named Susan, during the Civil War. It is filled with suspense that takes a turn down an unexpected path. Susan is a brave young Southerner, who feels that she must do something for the Cause in order to be accepted by her abusive, crazy mother. During the battles of war, Susan wonders, while confined in her home, about her long-lost brother, Lucien, who ran away from the family when she was so young. Under the most unusual circumstances, Susan meets up with her brother, who views the South as corrupt and evil. Susan is a daring young girl, who sets off on a mission to collect silk dresses so the South can make a hot air balloon to be used during war. Susan faces the loss of her father, a soldier who she had helped to heal, and her "second-brother," Kenneth, who all had to die for the South. Now, Susan isn't so sure the South has any purpose at all. Susan's dilemmas and losses bring so much emotion into the mind of the reader that there is no possible way to keep the tears from rolling down your face. This story is written with description that sends your mind into the past and puts you by the side of Susan Chilmark. This character is filled with bravery, humor, love, and confusion, all wrapped up to form one spunky teen who is always forgetting her manners. Ann Rindali, the author, portrays her as life-like as possible, and Susan seems to stand up and walk before your eyes. After the death of her father, Susan uncovers family secrets that are sure to chill the reader to the bone. She is no longer sure if her brother, who had become such an important part of her life, will accept her. Wonder and suspense fills the reader's mind with questions as the pages turn and the outcome is exposed. This is an unforgettable story that I highly recommend. Tears, laughter, anger, and fright will all fill your mind as you escape into this adventurous book. Romance between a Yankee and Susan, murder, and treason all unfold before your eyes, unexpectedly, as Susan decides if her heart is really with the South.

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Summary: An impression that will stick with you
Review: I am an avid reader with a wide range of interests. I first read this book when I was about 12 years old. I read it a couple more times as a teenager and just came across it again about 10 years later. When I re-opened the book as an adult, I was pulled in just as dramatically as I had been the last three times I read it. "The Last Silk Dress" is the only book I've ever read more than once. It is riveting; truly the best juvenile fiction I have found. The heroine is one for all ages, facing life struggles that can be translated to today's situations.

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Summary: The First Interesting Book
Review: The first time I heard about The Last Silk Dress was in my English class a few weeks ago. With only one more month left of the school year I really didn't want to read it because I don't like to read. But when I opened that book and started reading I couldn't stop. Usually when you start reading a book it's boring but with The Last Silk Dress it was different. It was interesting from the beginning to the end.
The Last Silk Dress is about a 14 year old southern belle in the state Richmond, Virginia. Susan Chilmark was... trapped in a cage, I guess you could say,and she was trapped because of her mother. Susan lived in the time of the Civil War and she wanted to do something to help the cause. Her mother allowed her to do nothing. So as often as she could Susan would sneak out of the house to get more news of the Civil War. While out once she ran into her brother, Lucien, that she hadn't seen in years. They began at a bad start but began to connect. When Susan's father died he left Lucien in charge of Susan, and after a terrible night with her mother ,where Susan learned of her true Yankee father, Susan ran from home and stayed with Lucien. But while staying with Lucien so long, with him and his different ideas, Susan began to feel she no longer wanted to be a part of such a terrible war. So she convinced the man she loved to help her give the balloon she made to the Yankees, and he did agains't the approval of Lucien. When Lucien found out what Timothy, the man Susan loved, who was a Yankee, and Susan had done he said he never wanted to see Timothy again. But because of the danger Susan was in in Virginia she needed to leave. So Lucien called Timothy back and they made a plan to get Susan to the North to live with Timothy's family.
This book is the most wonderful book I have ever read, and that means a lot coming out of me because I don't really like reading. I recommend this book to everyone, once you read this book you'll discover how amazing and talented writers are.

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Summary: AMAZING!!!!!
Review: Susan Chilmark is a 14 year old girl, with an abusive, crazy mother, and a brother banned from her house. To prove that she is loyal to the Confederacy, she gathers silk dresses from all of the ladies of Richmond to make a balloon to spy on the Yankees. However, when she meets her brother Lucien, her world changes. She falls in love with a Yankee. Suddenly hating her past, and the Cause, she makes an attempt to get rid of the balloon she helped create. Find out for yourself what happens next, and read this amazing book! It had adventure, suspense, romance, and a whole bunch more. I love reading from Rinaldi. In the past month, I've read 10 of her books. I dare you to read this book....it was great!

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Summary: BEST BOOK IN HISTORY OF OUR WORLD
Review: To concisely say this, this truly is the BEST BOOK IN THE WORLD. If you don't read it you'll truly be missing out on a book that you'll regret not having read. This is my absolute favorite book and I've tons of thousands of books in my lifetime. I loved this book so much that after I first read I tried writing a sequel to it because there isn't one. I was only in 6th grade at the time so I ended up quitting because when you're in the 6th grade no one is a very good writer.
This book is about a girl named Susan Chilmark. Her father adores her, her mother hates her, and she has a brother she hasn't seen forever until one day when she is running about in boy clothes trying to hear more about the war, The Civil War, because her mother doesn't want her to do anything for the cause. Susan then runs into Lucien, her brother, and almost gets whipped by him because he thinks she is a boy who stole his old clothes that she was wearing. One thing leads to another and Lucien and Susan become good friends. In this book Susan falls in love with her brother's Yankee friend named Timothy at age 14!!!!!!!! Susan goes behind her mothers back and makes a balloon out of silk dresses that Lucien helps her collect. Lucien gets these most exquiste dresses from, prostetutes!!!!
Lucien soon teaches Susan though that the Cause isn't such a good one. Susan regrets making the balloon and asks Timothy if he really cares about her to give her balloon to the Yankees. He does and because of that Susan has to flee to the North with Timothy, and sord of unfortunately Lucien too. Poo!

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Summary: A really good book
Review: This book was actually really good. I read this book because in English we'd been focusing on different authors and Ann Rinaldi was one of them. I liked her writing style after seeing bits and pieces of it and fell in love with her writing. I read In My Father's House and once I completed that I just felt I had to read another of her works. The story never grows dull, which most usually do in English.I just love books that have girls my age from the South! I'm a big historic fiction reader and just love when I can relate to a character even in the smallest way. It was just a great book overall. There's nothing really more to say than it's just a really great book! Also if you liked this book- you'll love In My Father's House