Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here is one such title, suggested by Grateful American™ Book Prize judge Dr. Peter S. Carmichael, the Robert C. Fluhrer Professor of Civil War Studies and director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College:

• “This Infernal War”: The Civil War Letters of William and Jane Standard, edited by Timothy Mason Roberts. This eye-opening collection of correspondence between a Union soldier and his wife offers a glimpse of how one Illinois family weathered the bloody conflict — and of how Northerners’ views on the fighting didn’t always fit into a neat (or terribly virtuous) box.

Each year, the Grateful American™ Foundation, through its Book Prize, honors excellence in children’s historical nonfiction and fiction focused on the people and events that have shaped the U.S. since its birth. To learn more about the prize, click here.