A review by thukpa
Mare's War by Tanita S. Davis

4.0

Octavia and Talitha are stuck riding along with their grandmother Mare cross country to a family reunion in Alabama. Mare's not like other grandmothers, and neither girl is happy with spending their summer this way. Along the way, though, they get to know a little bit about how Mare became the tough old broad that she is: she served in WWII, Women's Army Corp, in the all African-American 6888th battillion. Having escaped poverty and violence by entering the army in segregationist times, Mare not only learned skills that served her throughout her life, but experienced a less racist European lifestyle and came home with a resolve to change her life. Told in alternating chapters, titled "now" in Octavia's viewpoint and "then," Mare's story, this was a great book on many levels.