Thirteen-year-old Amos Abernathy loves being a 19th-century historical reenactor at the Chickaree County Living History Park in Illinois where his mom works as lead interpreter. Things change, though, when a new volunteer named Ben arrives. Amos has been out as gay since fourth grade, and he’s part of his school’s Gender and Sexualities Alliance (GSA), but he’s never had a crush before. A conversation with Ben also leads Amos to realize that he’d always reenacted as if he was straight, as if there was no place for him as a gay boy in the past. He becomes determined to find queer people who lived in the 19th century. “This is my chance to show the world I belong here, and that I belonged back then. We can prove that queer people have always belonged,” he says.
He turns to the Internet, and discovers Albert D. J. Cashier, a Civil War soldier who was assigned female at birth but fought for the Union Army as a man. While Amos and Albert don’t identify the same way, Amos feels a connection with him, just as he does with his GSA friends who identify differently. They’re there for each other nonetheless. Amos convinces other youth reenactors to help him with a proposal for a new exhibit on Cashier and other 19th century LGBTQ people they’ve found. Ben, however, whose family goes to an anti-LGBTQ church in their town, has stopped volunteering and not spoken with Amos in months. Amidst his confusion over Ben, Amos and his friends must face conservative minds on the museum board and a bullying girl reenactor whose father is a major funder of the museum. When it looks like things are turning against them, will a daring plan (and some help from the GSA) succeed?
Amos is White, but his research, as well as his long-time friendship with a Black girl, Chloe, also help him understand how not only LGBTQ history has been suppressed, but how the history of Black people and other people of color has, too. The friends’ historical investigations also motivate Chloe to try and portray “a free Black woman blacksmith” at the park. Although the park has never had any female blacksmiths before, she has found evidence of them as well as of free Black women, and wants to shed light on this also-overlooked bit of history. Her struggle to apprentice in this role forms a significant side plot.
The story is told in two alternating sections: letters Amos writes to Albert starting in the summer of 2021 as a way of processing his feelings about both his historical explorations and Ben; and a straightforward first-person narrative covering one day in the summer of 2022 as Amos and his friends’ plans for creating change reach a crucial moment. Some reviewers have seen this as awkward, and perhaps it will be a slightly challenging format for some readers, but I loved it. Because it forces readers to move between past and present, I think it highlights the whole idea of history being a conversation with the past. The book also uses a darker background for the letters to Albert, making it very clear which section one is reading at any point.
Debut author Michael Leali makes Amos a likeable and perceptive protagonist with a passion for the past and a keen eye for observation. Amos’ discussions of why unheard voices in history are important feel occasionally a little mature for his 13 years, but that’s not an entirely bad thing (and perhaps I’m not giving enough credit to today’s youth). History fans should love it, and even those who aren’t (yet) might come to better understand why acknowledging the fullness of our past matters so much for our present.
