Sybil's Night Ride - Hardcover

Winnick, Karen B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1563976978 ISBN 13: 9781563976971

Publisher: Boyds Mills Press, 2000

Synopsis

On the stormy night of April 26, 1777, young Sybil Ludington rode on her horse spreading the word that the British were coming. They had already set fire to the nearby town of Danbury, Connecticut and the glow of the flames had turned the night sky to fiery red. Sybil rode through the countryside to alert the patriots with the cry of "Muster at Ludington's!"

About this title

About the Author

Karen Winnick is an author and illustrator of Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers, Sybil's Night Ride, Lucy's Cave, A Year Goes Round, Barn Sneeze, Cassie's Sweet Berry Pie, Sandro's Dolphin and Patch & The Strings.  She is the author The Night of the Fireflies.  Her paintings have been exhibited in local galleries, and her poetry has been published in magazines and anthologies. She has also produced a play, Kindertransport, about Jewish children sent to England during WWII.

Karen serves as President of the Board of Commissioners for the Los Angeles Zoo; the Board of Trustees Emeritus at Brown University; the Board of Trustees at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library; the Board of Trustees of Fauna and Flora, International   and the Board of Governors Syracuse University Hillel. She has also served on the Board of Trustees of The Jewish Museum in New York and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council in Washington, D.C.

Karen received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Syracuse University.  She also studied in Florence, Italy, at NYU, the School of Visual Arts, and at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Reviews

This young version of the story of Sybil Ludingtons ride fails to capture the excitement of the actual event. Almost two years to the day after Paul Revere and the alarm riders rode the night to call the Minutemen to arms, the 16-year-old daughter of a militia officer, rode a like mission on her horse, Star, through southern Dutchess County, New York, to muster the colonials, this time as the British were busy burning Danbury, Connecticut. It was a wild ride, through the stormy dark, all alone for mile after rural mile. Unfortunately, Winnick's recreation of the event falls short from every angle. The nave artwork is too sentimental to evoke the drama of the ride, even if it calls up an 18th-century atmosphere. The wealth of local and circumstantial detail she provides is overmuch to the point of ungainliness, getting in the way of, rather than conjuring, a distinctive local aura. And there is simply no way to generate much excitement when the best you can deliver is ``On and on they went'' and ``We can do it, Star.'' Limping. (Picture book. 6-8) -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In this picture book, 16-year-old Sybil Ludington races along the dark forest road on her horse, Star, proving herself a brave patriot. Daughter of a colonel in the Revolutionary fight, Sybil is inspired by her father's courage to alert his 400 troops that the British are burning Danbury, New York. On hearing Sybil's alarm, the men muster at Ludington's and are able to help push back the Redcoats. Intensifying the innate drama of the ride are an episode of a deer darting across the messengers' path, and a close call with a Loyalist who would have foiled Sybil's plan. Winnick uses muted earthy colors in her artwork, applying them with a gouache-like texture that evokes the feeling of the flashing white raindrops cutting through the black night and pelting down on Sybil and Star. Details in the text and illustrations, and an archival map of Sybil's route, reinforce this story of a little-known historic episode, which will make a good companion to Katherine Kirkpatrick's Redcoats and Petticoats. Ellen Mandel

Edition details

• Publisher: Boyds Mills Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1563976978
• ISBN 13: 9781563976971
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32