They have two slaves (who are, of course, slated to be freed at some indeterminate point in the future) and seem to be fairly well-off. She has another brother, David, and an older sister, Becky, who’s married to a British officer and living with their wealthy grandfather. Jemima is a standard-issue Not Like Other Girls girl who is terrible at academic pursuits and domestic duties, and would much rather be out riding her horse, Bleu, or hanging around with her brothers.

Jemima’s parents were good friends with the Reids, which is why I suppose they continue to engage him as a tutor for their daughter while holding vastly different ideological views. John Reid, Jemima’s tutor, is twenty-four and a staunch Loyalist, as well as the local schoolmaster. Her older brother Dan is in charge of the local militia, and seems to spend most of his time in the first half of the book looking to recruit men while looking very dashing in his officer’s uniform. She clashes almost immediately with her strict tutor, since rather than go to her lesson, she was running around in the woods getting her older brother to teach her how to fire a musket. Jemima is fifteen years old and living in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1778. This may or may not have been because Jemima, the protagonist, was wearing a gorgeous dress on the cover.

This may not be one of Rinaldis’ absolute most popular books, but it was one of my favourites. Why put off until tomorrow, etc., so let’s get started with the oeuvre of one of the Greats, the Big Names of 80s-90s-era historical fiction, the woman who was on every library shelf and in every school classroom at some point, one of the big kahunas herself: Ann Rinaldi.īook: Time Enough for Drums, Ann Rinaldi, 1986.

Time enough for drums by ann rinaldi