This Betty Ren wright could not write a better book (or so I think). This book is about a girl and her foster brother wants to take piano lessons. All she wanted to do was explore haunted castles but the she gets stuck staying in an apartment that will bw torn down soon... oops I'm starting to say to much. I think anyone who love horoor would love this book!

The Red Badge of Courage is interepted as many as being an anti-war novel: it is not.What it does do is present the horrors and psychological aspects of war war without glory, but not without heroics and courage.Henry Fleming is in many ways an every-soldier: he joins the army out of patriotism and to prove his manhood; when the time comes to fight he doubts himself and runs away out of fear. It is at this point Henry comes to the crossroads of his young life: instead of completely deserting his unit he returns to his regiment and the battlefield out of a sense of duty and also out of shame and anger at himself. Once he returns he peforms heroically on the battlefield. I feel Crane's purpose in this books is not to make some overblown anti-war treatise like All Quiet on the Western Front, but to portray what he believed( and may soldiers who read the book agreed with him) to be the emotions and feelings of a soldier in war and also the true motivation behind courage and heroism. Crane shows through Henry, that heroism and courage in war is not something that comes naturally to man(or any animal, as shown by the squirrel scene in the forest) or can simply be conjured up out of blind obedience or extreme partiotism. Crane in fact argues the opposite: courage in war(or in and courage in reponse to violence) is something unatural, something that must be accomplished by overcoming our own natural fear and flight instincts.Henry is able to perform herocially because of anger, his sense of duty, his feeling of brotherhood toward his regiment and out of something deep inside himself that even Crane ( and nobody) could not totally understand . This is a great book about heroism, courage , brotherhood, duty and the psychological aspects of war. It is not a books that glorifies war ,nor it is it an anti-war treatise. It simply tells a story about war in a world where war exists.

When Stephen Crane wrote THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE it was hailed as a masterpiece of war fiction, more so especially when its readers found out that the only experience Crane had in war was the kind that most of his readers had: from books and articles. When readers discuss the book, they tend to focus on its two outstanding elements: Crane's use of symbol and imagery and the maturation of one soldier from cowardice to courage. Clearly Crane does use language superbly to create in the reader's eye an image of a callow youth, Henry Fleming, who starts off the novel in fear and finishes it in a blaze of glory. But such considerations, when used in isolation, tend to diminish Crane's more subtle attitude toward war and man's attitudes toward war. Crane tends to picture war in a generic sense. Many of his characters have no name. They are referred to by type: the 'youth,' the 'tattered' soldier, the 'dying' man. Battles have no geographical name. What the reader gets out of Crane's refusal to particularize the war is his belief that all soldiers in all wars react much the same as Henry Fleming to the rigors of battle. Further, Crane's use of color imagery, his investing nature with human qualities (called the pathetic fallacy), and his use of symbols (the flag, the wafer-like sun) all combine to suggest that war is so inherently chaotic that it resists any attempt on a literary level to concretize its horrors.
Crane's focus is squarely on Henry Fleming and his perception of both himself and his environment. We never know what the other soldiers think. We can infer their thoughts only through the evolving view of Fleming himself. And what he thinks is that he will turn yellow at the first opportunity. As he thinks this, he rationalizes that all other soldiers think as he does. Further, he sees nature itself in harmony with his thougts. If Fleming lacks courage, then so must the rest of the universe. Serious literary critics point to even more subtle and archetypal images of birth versus rebirth and retreat versus advance in order to bolster their respective claims concerning how Fleming's moral regeneration began. I have no problem with this focus on Fleming's conversion, but not many readers question the sincerity of this conversion. By the middle of the novel, Fleming has been humiliated, bashed on the head with a rifle butt, separated from his mates, and is generally battling with some serious issues of self-worth. And then he changes. For no apparent reason, he now is brimful with courage in battle and hatred of the enemy. Further, he feels a deep shame towards those boys in blue who now exhibit the same lack of courage that formerly characterized him. Yet, it does not follow that courage must spring forth from a mere recognizance of one's own failings. What Crane would seemingly have the reader believe is that Fleming turned his life around quickly and seemingly at will. Yet I quibble at this conversion. It is more likely that Crane wanted his readers to see that the innate chaotic nature of war is so alien to human understanding that the concepts that we call 'courage' and 'cowardice' are mere tags to describe on the most superficial of levels a multi-faceted series of strands of emotions that under stress blend into one another so that the excess of one is seen as the deficiency of the other. Fleming's new-found courage, then, in charging for the grey guns, is less the permanent sense of abiding bravery than the temporary sense of fear turned upside down, a result which mimics but does not actualize true heroism. As Fleming holds onto his red flag while wearing his red badge of courage, the redness of both flag and badge are reduced to empty posturing, that paradoxically enough entitle their bearer to accolades of heroic merit by those others who have not yet undergone a similar conversion. Therefore, it is this superficial conversion of and confusion with deep-seated fear and suspect heroism that marks Crane as one who sought to reveal the terrible chaos of war by suggesting that those whom we adore as heroes perform their acts with less obvious motivation.

While in junior high I failed to jump on The Red Badge of Courage bandwagon when everyone chose it as a book report book because of its length. I am sorry I missed out. The length certainly makes this book easy and accessible to people of all ages, but it is so much more. Not only is it very fast paced, unpredictable, and the best character study I've ever read, but it is timeless. It is about war, specifically the Civil War, but there are no politics or specifics about that war, it is about the emotions of a youth at war and the world through his eyes. There is no difference between what he is thinking as his regiment is charging and what a 20 year old in a modern war would feel. Though Crane had never seen a war before writing this book, he paints an incredibly powerful, honest, and realistic portrayal. It is a fantastic book and one that deserves a very careful, detailed reading, but can also be enjoyed and finished in a couple hours.

I thought that this was a good book. I liked how Betty Ren Wright described the book. After every chapter she leaves you with an exciting ending. My favorite part was when Chad was sleeping and the snake came after him. The main characters are Chad and Jeannie. She gave them great names. I think that this book needed to have illustrations to show the reader what was going on. This book was exciting and full of adventure. I also think that this book needed to be longer. Anyone who enjoys mysteries would like to read this book.

This book is a quality horror story for children. It is scary, but not too scary. It is not disgusting and has a story with a moral.

This is a good book for any early middle school student. The morals are taught loud and clear. Don't judge other people before you get to know them. And don't do something you might regret later. This book could have been a little better with the moral even though it already was said loud and clear.