Three months ago I said I’d be rooting for Tanya Landman and her Buffalo Soldier to win the Carnegie medal. And what good rooting that must have been! Yesterday Tanya did win and I’m very, very pleased. For her. Not because I was right. Although I do like being right.
It’s not surprising, as this was the book so many of her peers were enthusing about on social media. This does happen for some books every now and then, but in Tanya’s case I felt the admiration was more widespread than usual.
Buffalo Soldier is about a recently freed female slave, who dresses as a man and becomes a soldier in the American Civil War. It’s a hard life, and it’s a hard book, but it is truly wonderful and I can thoroughly recommend it.
(Strangely enough I’m just now reading another book set in the same period and in a similar place, so I’m guessing I sensed it was time to return to this war and to the slavery issues.)
Congratulations, Tanya!
The Occasional Bookwitch 