The book called Johnny Tremain—A Story of Boston in Revolt is great summer reading for anyone middle school age and up. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it as an adult, even though the main character is a teen. According to the internet, this book is required reading at some middle schools. Written by a historian named Esther Forbes, it received a John Newbery Medal “for the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.”

​Although Johnny and some of the other characters in the book are fictitious, they are surrounded by real political and military figures and a chain of events that really took place in Massachusetts in 1773 to 1775. Walt Disney made the book into a movie in 1957, but the writer of the new introduction, Gary D. Schmidt, implies you will get a more realistic picture from reading the book. The Sons of Liberty would not have marched down the streets singing about “The Liberty Tree.” What they intended to accomplish would require them to be as secretive as possible.

The loving mother of the teenage orphan named Johnny Tremain had arranged for Johnny to live with a silversmith because of his dreams of being a great silversmith himself. His eagerness to do the best job possible as an apprentice, in making the handle for an ornate bowl for a distinguished customer, brings him to ask questions of that famous silversmith named Paul Revere. But an ugly accident comes in the way of Johnny continuing to develop his gift for molding silver.

Desperate to find a way to support himself, Johnny ends up delivering newspapers. The attic of the newspaper’s office is the very place where the committee assigned to surmise the plans of the British troops and decide the colonists’ response is meeting in secret. (The book says they had to quit meeting in the Green Dragon Tavern, since they had been noticed.) The young typesetter who works for the newspaper turns out to be a good friend and a good influence. Johnny’s propensity for saying whatever he feels is tempered somewhat by his friend’s good sense. We see in this story the benefits of having an admirable friend. We also see that Johnny admires good character rather than wealth. He had been the apprentice of a God-fearing, Bible-reading silversmith.

Johnny’s story intersects with the famous historic Boston Tea Party and the opening battle of the American Revolution, and he becomes a part of them. Those who read this book will have a better understanding of the birth of our nation. They will see that the colonists would have avoided war if the British had been more reasonable, but they could no longer sit by while their freedom was being trampled upon. The closing words of the book give the reason for the Revolution “in a nutshell.”

There is much more involved in this intriguing story, but I will leave that to be discovered by the reader. Being that the book was originally published in 1943, some of the wording is different than we would use today. However, the richness of the words of this book make it well worth reading. The reader may want to look up the meaning of an uncommon word occasionally, but growing someone’s vocabulary is always a good thing. I would say this book is very deserving of the award that it received.