Johnny Rinaldi Chapter Summary

This book is a historical novel about the American Revolution in the South of the United States, specifically in South Carolina. Award-winning Ann Rinaldi, who was born in New York in 1934, wrote this deftly plotted novel in 1998 and is mainly addressed to young adults willing to embark on a fast-paced adventure amidst the American raging war in the South. Rinaldi mentions actual battles, including American and British military leaders. She explains how much of a venture it was for her to take on a book about the American Revolution in the South, since not only was it a conflict between the British and American forces, but also between American civilians. This conflict would come to pave the way for the American civil war that would take

In fact, the title of this book draws attention to Caroline’s African origins. At one point in the novel, Johnny tells Caroline that “people who cast two shadows are very special and that they have the best qualities of both races. Throughout the plot, we learn about Caroline’s unresolved family issues: how her enslaved black mother was sold to the West Indies by Caroline’s father and the rough journey her grandmother faced when she was taken into Charleston from Angola, a country near the Congo River. Historically, plantation owners in the South were the wealthiest men in the country. The British thought of slavery as a potential weapon to use against plantation owners – who, for the most part, were patriots –, so the British army promised freedom to those slaves who fled their plantations and stood up to their owners. Nonetheless, many black slaves were deceived and sold by the British to the sugar plantations of the West Indies, as Caroline’s mother. What is more, I believe Rinaldi comes across brutally straightforward about the sexual abuse suffered by black slaves, just like Caroline’s