HOME SCHOOL BOOK REVIEW
Book: This Time, Tempe Wick?
Author: Patricia Lee Gauch
Illustrator: Margot Tomes
Publisher: Boyds Mills Press, republished in 2003
ISBN-13: 978-1590781791 Hardcover
ISBN-10: 1590781791 Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-1590781852 Paperback
ISBN-10: 1590781856 Paperback
Language level: 1
(1=nothing objectionable; 2=common euphemisms and/or childish slang terms; 3=some cursing or profanity; 4=a lot of cursing or profanity; 5=obscenity and/or vulgarity)
Recommended reading level: Ages 4-7 read to, 8-11 read independently
Rating: ***** 5 stars (EXCELLENT)
Reviewed by Wayne S. Walker
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Gauch, Patricia Lee. This Time, Tempe Wick? (published in 1974 by Coward McCann and Geoghegan Inc., New York City, NY). It is the winter of 1780 to 1781, during the American Revolution, and Temperance Wick, known as Tempe, is a teenage girl living with her father and mother in Jockey Hollow near Morristown, NJ. When ten thousand Revolutionary War soldiers descend on Jockey Valley to camp, Tempe pitches right in to help feed and clothe them, and she keeps right on helping even after her father dies and her mother gets sick. However, a mutiny arises when the Pennsylvania soldiers, cold, tired, and unpaid, turn against their captains and even against the very farmers who had shared their wheat, their cows, and their clothing through the bitter winter.
In fact, two of the soldiers try to steal Tempe’s beloved horse Bonny. What will Tempe do? Author Patricia Lee Gauch wrote, “Tempe Wick was a real colonial girl….The legend, on which this story is based, has been widely shared since the days Tempe and her horse raced the Jockey Hollow roads. Many historians have regarded it as true.” A fun and interesting side note to a young person’s study of the American Revolution, the tale of Tempe illustrates bravery, persistence, and even wisdom in making the right choices. For those living in or visiting New Jersey, the Wick home still stands the way it did over 200 years ago, with tour guides dressed in period clothes as part of Jockey Hollow National Park.
