The Printer's Apprentice

I just finished reading this book with my 8 yr old and we both found it fascinating. Not only does it tell the tale of the beginning of freedom of the press in America, one of our constitutional rights, it gives a realistic look into the life of a boy in colonial times. However, it is neither preachy or teachy, and moves along at good pace to keep kids interested.

I read a marvelous book titled The Printer's Apprentice,written by Stephen Krensky.This story takes place in 1734 in New York.The four main characters are Gus Croft,William Bradstar,Peter Zenger,and the governer of New York.Gus is a young bright child who is an apprentice of William and writes for the Gazzete.William owns the Gazette and teaches Gus a whole lot about writting.Zenger is a bright young man who is the writer for the Neww York Weekly Journal.The governer fo New York is an old man that runs the city.The main problem is that the poor man Zenger is being put on trial because he wrote bad(but true)things about the governer. In the begining,the governer of New York wanted the Gazette that William owned to be cancled unless better things were written.So William told Gus to go to visit his cousin in Philadelphia to do this.At the same time,Zenger is being placed on trial because he wrote bad but true things about the governer in the New York Weekly trial.It was a great timing because Gus finds this trial with Zenger when he's in Philladelphia.He watches the trial and hears the defendent of Zenger explaining what is libel and what is the truth to the judge and jurores.He tells that what Zenger wrote was true,but if it wasn't true he should be guilty.Eleven years later Zenger dies. This book tells what happened durring the colonial days.Writers would write things about a person in a high oosision and the person doesn't like it.You may not know that people were put on trial because of this.The high leveled person would say that the writer was writing libel things about him.If the judge lets the writer have the freedom of speech then the writer is innocent and should not be guilty and sent to prison.