Did I not read this as a child because it was about a boy? I wish I had: lots of Boston, lots of Revolutionary War build-up, and a fine bildungsroman embedded in that backdrop (instead of nonsensically marionetted before it).
Is this too hard for fifth grade? I still remember the illustrations in the history book showing the steps and time necessary to fire one musket shot. Johnny is 15, but is that too old a protagonist for a 10-year-old?
Esther Forbes doesn't omit that the Sons of Liberty owned slaves, and while a man is orating about freedom from tyranny, from the Spanish and French slavery to the south and north, an enslaved woman is serving punch.
I don't know what I expected this to be about. Two Years Before the Mast mixed with All Quiet on the Western Front, maybe. Instead it was a short happy version of Island of the Blue Dolphins with the added benefit of no canine mortality. A fine adventure story in paradise.
Except that somehow I doubt cannibalistic tribes were darker of skin than any other: should Armstrong Sperry in 1941 be allowed that aspersion or should I consider that "those dark people" was a metaphor?