Johnny Tremain

This is a timeless story of a boy growing up during the time of the Revolutionary War. He has many adventures and meets some of the most recognizable figures of that time period. A wonderful coming of age story that focuses on friendship and just the trial and error of growing up. A great story for kids and adults alike.

Loved the mane carecter even if he was a little full of himself. The time is during the revolutionary War and the settings and descriptions were amazing 👏

One of the joys of teaching is being able to revisit with fresh eyes the joys of childhood. I spent my childhood living in the wonderful world of books. So returning to that life as a teacher was great fun. During the summer of 1994, I took up tutoring some children as I prepared for graduate school and a career change. One student was getting ready for a local private high school. So I got to read the school's assigned summer reading list. How young and foolish I was! I knew nothing of the author but, commenced to plough my way through this book attempting to help my struggling student make the connections in order to "gel" with this book. Maybe I should have started with the book's author? Esther Forbes grew up in a family of six children. That in and of itself is enough to create a few creative kids out of the bunch. You have to really work at getting your parents' attention when you are part of a large family. Esther Forbes struggled throughout her years with poor eyesight and dyslexia. And she took up being an author with all of that to overcome! Good thing she was persistent. She was persistent enough to be awarded the John Newbery Medal for most distinguished contribution of the year to children's literature. (1943). This book was published within two years after Pearl Harbor. An author witnessing one war, while contemplating the war that birthed this nation into what it has become today. I have to wonder if September 11th will give birth to some authors who can provide insight to children about the realities of war? I wish I had been introduced to Johnny Tremain as a youth. History was dull... full of facts and figures with no life. The passion that grew in me for history arrived in my first years of college under the tutelage of a magnificent professor who made the flat facts on the page jump into exciting life. He could paint a portrait with his words. The people on the page were living, breathing, and often quite entertaining people. People like us, people we would love to meet. Esther Forbes is good at painting word portraits too. And so I really enjoyed her work. How did that student of mine do? Well, not so enthralled by the whole Johnny Tremaine thing, but did well enough to pass the intake requirements. I had wanted to be a beacon of light leading that child into the excitement of learning for learning's sake... but, that's so hard to do. We both finished the summer, though, happy. The child got the admission and I found a renewed friendship with children's novels. Ignite the child within yourself, and pop into this book to remember the joys of juvenile historical fiction.

JOHNNY TREMAIN is a magic book for me. It takes me back to 1966 when I was in fifth grade at Stadium School. We had a student teacher named Miss Greenberg who announced to us that she was going to begin reading aloud to us every day after lunch. We were ten and eleven year olds and highly insulted that the teacher wanted to read to us like babies! Then Miss Greenberg started reading JOHNNY TREMAIN. Within a week none of the kids in class could wait to get back from lunch, even the boys who professed that they "hated books." There were two copies of JOHNNY TREMAIN in the school library and after that first week they were reserved for weeks in advance. I begged my mother for a copy for Christmas; she had to go crazy to order one because they were out of print back then. She finally found a teacher's edition that had study questions at the end of the book. I loved the portrait of Boston in the 1770s and although Johnny was a little too arrogant for my taste in the beginning, I grew to like him as he changed in the course of the book. My favorite character has always been Cilla Lapham, but I love Johnny's horse Goblin as well, and Rab and the Lornes and Miss Bessie, the Lytes' cook. They are all welcome friends.

In 1943, with America deeply embedded in the worst of World War II, author Esther Forbes wrote a tale that touched on the founding of America itself. Since its publication, "Johnny Tremain" has remained one of the best known children's books ever written. It won the 1944 Newbery Award and is still read by schoolchildren everywhere. Heck, even Bart Simpson was lured into reading it in a "Simpsons" episode (Marge tells him that it's about a boy with a deformed hand and he' intrigued). Newbery award winners come and go. Sometimes they're remembered (ala "Caddie Woodlawn") and sometimes they're rightfully forgotten (ala "Daniel Boone"). "Johnny Tremain" is different because even reading it today the book remains readable, thoughtful, and interesting. It deserves its praise. Johnny Tremain is an apprenticed silversmith of one Mr. Lapham. Unusually skilled in the trade, Johnny's the star of the household. The other apprentices envy and hate him and the members of the Lapham family love him. Just the same, Johnny is unaccountably vain. Boastful and overflowing with pride, he lords his superior abilities over everyone he meets, even catching the eye of the greatest silversmith in Boston, Paul Revere. Yet when a broken crucible maims Johnny's hand with silver, the life he had planned for himself can never be. Desperate for work, he finally finds a place with the Boston Observer, a Whig news publication. Soon Johnny finds himself rubbing shoulders with the men of the Revolution. His life becomes enmeshed in the spy networks and fighting words that lead up to the American Revolution. In doing so, he becomes a major player in the creation of a new America. I read this book in elementary school and, sadly, remembered very little of it. What I did remember was Johnny's hand. Honestly, I think this book would sell like hotcakes if it was retitled, "Johnny Tremain: The Boy With the Deformed Hand". Not that I'm seriously recommending the change. What really struck me, when reading this book again today, was just how well written the little bugger is. First of all, it begins with an unsympathetic protagonist. Up till now, most Newbery protagonists fell somewhere between saints and perfection incarnate. But Johnny is just the kind of little snot who needs to be taken down a peg to become a better person. This isn't one of those books where the hero gets hurt and suddenly makes a miraculous transformation from bad to good either. As you read the story you see Johnny's progress. He grows and learns from his injury, yes, but he also grows and learns from meeting and speaking with other people. Which brings me to the second remarkable aspect of this book. The English, awful as they are sometimes, are not evil cackling villains. Johnny meets and even, to some extent, befriends British officers. He finds himself pitying the English wounded and sympathizing with their pain. Likewise, not all the American Revolutionaries are perfect gods.

As a 5th grade teacher of gifted & talented social studies students, I found "Johnny Tremain" an excellent tool for teaching the American Revolution. Our textbook is dry and devotes only a small number of pages to this major event in American history. "Johnny Tremain's" historial places and characters help readers understand and visualize this important period of time. True, the vocabulary is high level. Teachers need to discuss vocabulary ahead of time. I read the book out loud to my class and discussed each chapter. The extra effort is well worth the final results.

Cocky, insecure Johnny Tremain remains on of my favorite fictional people. And his book remains one of my favorite stories. A few reasons why: The characterizations in this book are wonderful. No one is painted in strictly black and white. Even the apparent villains have their good qualities. The setting, as well, is fascinating and well-researched. Esther Forbes did, after all, win a Pulitzer Prize for history. She knew what she was describing and presented it well. The whole book has a great "you-are-there" quality. I first read Johnny Tremain in the sixth grade and must have read it twenty times in a row (mostly skipping the ending, which is sad). Then I got out the encyclopedia and read the article on the American Revolution. Now I'm majoring in history.