There's A War Outside
Ink And Revolution
What was it like to be a teenage girl when the American Revolution came frighteningly close to home?
KM Kids Books is excited to announce an upcoming addition to the Teen Patriot Series, There’s a War Outside: Ink and Revolution, based on the remarkable experiences of Sally Wister, a real teenager who lived through the American Revolution.
A Teenager Caught in a Revolution
In 1777, fifteen-year-old Sally Wister was living with her family in Philadelphia when the approaching British army changed everything. The danger became so great that the Wister family left their home and sought safety in the countryside.
For Sally, the Revolution was no longer something discussed by adults or reported in distant news. War had disrupted her home, separated her from familiar surroundings, and brought soldiers and uncertainty into her everyday life.
But Sally had something that would eventually allow her voice to reach across the centuries: her writing.
During this extraordinary period, Sally recorded what she saw, heard, thought, and experienced. Her writings provide a fascinating glimpse into the Revolution from a perspective that history books too often overlook—that of a teenage girl.
History Through a Young Person’s Eyes
We often teach the American Revolution through battles, generals, political leaders, and famous documents. Those stories are important, but they are only part of the history.
Children and teenagers lived through the Revolution too.
They watched family members leave home. They heard rumors of approaching armies. They encountered soldiers. They worried about battles being fought nearby. And somehow, amid all that uncertainty, they continued doing the ordinary things young people have always done—forming friendships, laughing, teasing, wondering about the future, and growing up.
That is what makes Sally Wister's story so special.
There’s a War Outside introduces middle-school readers to the Revolution not from the battlefield, but through the experiences of a girl who found herself living in the middle of history.
Why Ink and Revolution?
The subtitle captures an important part of Sally's legacy.
Sally did not carry a musket into battle. She did something quieter.
She wrote.
And because she wrote, we can hear the voice of a young person who actually experienced Revolutionary America.
Her observations remind young readers that preserving history matters. Diaries, letters, journals, and personal recollections can tell us things that official military reports never could. They show us how enormous historical events affected individual people and ordinary families.
Sally's ink became her contribution to the story of the Revolution.
A New Teen Patriot Story for America’s 250th
As America commemorates 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, there could hardly be a better time to introduce today's young readers to the young people who experienced the Revolution themselves.
There’s a War Outside: Ink and Revolution will join the Teen Patriot Series, which brings the true stories of young people from Revolutionary America to middle-school readers through engaging historical storytelling.
Because the Revolution wasn't experienced only by famous adults.
There were children there, too.
And some of them left their stories behind.
Coming soon from KM Kids Books.
There’s a War Outside
Ink and Revolution
The remarkable story of Sally Wister—a teenage girl who picked up her pen while there was a war outside.