In Soldier’s Heart, Gary Paulsen crafts the story of a young Minnesota farm boy who leaves home at age fifteen to join the Union forces during the Civil War. This work of historical fiction is more appropriate for older readers as Paulsen pulls his readers onto the field of battle with farm boy Charley. Depictions of the war are realistic; romantic and glamorous, it isn’t. Charley returns home a different person, one with a soldier’s heart that will forever bear unseen wounds just as deadly as those made by bayonets and lead.