Books like A Line in the Sand: The Alamo Diary of Lucinda Lawrence

“A Line in the Sand: The Alamo Diary of Lucinda Lawrence” by Sherry Garland is a fictional epistolary record of events leading up to, during and after the battle of the Alamo in 1836, Lucinda records in her personal diary her feelings about her family, her friends, the events taking place in the fall of 1835 and the spring of 1836.Some of the interesting points from Lucinda’s view are the daily life of a family of settlers in south Texas when that territory had just become a part of Mexico; also the difficulty of starting a new life in the West for pioneers coming from other areas, the constant fear of Comanches and Santa Ana’s army, the unruly behavior of the Tennessee Volunteers, the difficulty of planting and harvesting every year and the political uncertainty of living in a country not yet a country. It also describes how settlers in Gonzales, Goliad and San Antonio reacted to the near certainty of having to fight to the death for freedom. As far as I can tell it is historically accurate. The fiction part is Lucinda and her thoughts. The rest is true.Even though Line in the Sand is mainly for Young Adults, it elucidates what happened in 1836. I picked this up in the “books for sale” section in our Port Washington Library here in New York. I had grown up a couple of miles from where Santa Ana was captured after the Battle of San Jacinto and I spent many of my boyhood days playing “army” along the banks of Vince’s Bayou over which Santa Ana’s army had tried to flee from Sam Houston and his small corps of outnumbered soldiers. When I was in the fourth grade I read a couple of illustrated books about the Alamo and San Jacinto, which started me on my way to having a great interest in history, learning Spanish, appreciating the culture of Mexico and studying the history of Mexico at the University of Puebla one summer.I recommend this book for young people who are Texans and for adults who still feel that way. Garland thoroughly researched the background for this book augmented by the fact that she grew up in the area being described. For more about the author, you may refer to http://dearamerica.wikia.com/wiki/She....