Ironhead, or, Once a Young Lady
by Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem; trans. from Dutch by Kristen Gehrman
Middle School, High School    Em Querido/Levine Querido    368 pp.    g
2/22    978-1-61614-048-0    $18.99

In this smoothly translated historical-fiction romp set in 1808, lively, propulsive storytelling whirls us through the countryside of what is now Belgium, France, and ­Germany with Constance, one of Napoleon’s more unusual soldiers. “Stance” has always been acerbic, rebellious, and capable. When her father marries her off to a middle-aged businessman, she sees only one way out: she puts on men’s clothes and joins the army. Stance’s defection from the marriage contract wreaks havoc on the family, especially on her hapless brother Pier, who, in the company of a corrupt customs officer, is sent to retrieve her. Van Rijckeghem evokes Napoleonic wartime chaos and the story’s fractious characters with colorful lucidity, comedy, and drama. Stance and Pier alternate as narrators; the tale swings between the former’s rash irreverence and boldness and the latter’s timidity and physical ineptitude. Throughout the story — with its hilarity and drastic eventfulness, its duels and battles, unexpected lovers, and lesson in how a girl can use a bellows to facilitate peeing while standing — Stance and Pier mature and become more resolutely themselves. Though the book ends as Stance sets off in quest of the woman she loves, the real heart here is the affection that grows between two very different siblings.

From the March/April 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.