Customer Reviews

Heroes Don't Run: A Novel of the Pacific War

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The first two books of this series "A Boy at War" and "A Boy No More" were decent but didn't grab my intrest that well! "Heroes Don't Run" is a spectacular ending or "trilogy" to this series of books! This was one of those books were I had a very hard time putting it down!
The main character "Adam Pelko" goes behind his mother's back and joins the marines! While he is at boot camp he sometimes questions his decision of joining the military. The battle scenes are graphic but not too bloody so I think this book would be good for younger people once again!
The ending is also very good because you can feel the happiness and pride Adam has when he returns home!
The very back of the book also has a summary of the Pacific War with Japan.
I hope my review was helpful to you.

This World War II experience is told through the eyes of a 17 year old boy who wishes to enlist in the Marines because both his grandfather and father fought in a war. Because his father died at Pearl Harbor, his mother will not sign for him join, so he goes to his grandfather and talks him into it. He then tells his story of a young boy going through bootcamp and war. Along the way he learns about friendship, fear, respect, and life, all while almost instantly chaning from a boy to man.

This story has the pace of a war, going from one incident to the next without dwelling on anything for too long. I usually do not like war stories, but I think this is a great war novel for older children to read and experience what war is like for children. It will open your eyes to the harsh reality of children fighting wars and what they have to go through. My copy of the book also has a brief historical note of the last major battle of WWII along with literature circle questions for teachers that follow Bloom's Taxonomy.

I Bought thus book @ a book catlog and, I've read 2 chapter of the book so far and i think it s a very intersting book. I think Adam is a very courgos boy, he is daring to go to the war and His friend Davi Mori is right now and they were planning to go to the war together but he went ahead and Adam is plannning to tell his mother. He is 3rd genation and His father died in the war and His grandfather lose an arm. This book give me a other new view to the war and specially he people that parcepte in the war.. i give it a 4 (so far) because he explain how is a day into a ''kid'' that whats to be a heroe.

" Heroes Don't Run"



Author: Harry Mazer


If you like novel's about the Civil War, then "Heroes Don't Run" is for you. This awesome book is written by Harry Mazer. The main characters are Adam Pelko who wants to join the Marines, but his mom will not let him. Adam goes to his grandpa and asks him to sign him up to go to the marines. Then reluctantly his grandpa signs it. Will he live through WW II? You have to read it to find out. We give it five stars because we would always want to know what happened next. We recommend this book to our friends because it is a thrilling war book.

Book review by: Keith Lamza and Jonathan Flores

Adam Pelko is seventeen and unable to enlist in the Marines without his mother's consent. He persuades his grandfather to endorse the necessary papers without his mother's knowledge and quickly finds himslef in the reality of a gueling boot-camp and grisly combat when he is shipped to Okinawa.

Mazer writes in a smooth, flowing, aga-appropriate narrative without losing the grit and spirit of a young man in war but an entire country as well. The author allows Adam and his readers to experience the discipline and taunting of boot-camp, the loneliness and brotherhood of war-time and the almost automatic preservation instinct that jerks into gear in the intensity of ferocious battles.

My sons, (9&12) relished the intensity of Heroes Don't Run enough to head off to the library for the first two books in Mazer's trilogy.

I think the author did a really good job describing the battle scene, by using details like blood and the pale faces of dead people. I could really imagine a war scene. I would recommend this book to people who like war and action books and would like to know more about World War 2

If you want to read an exciting story about a boy who enters the marines and fights in World War II, this book is for you. Adam Pelko is a 17 year old boy who wants to join the marines because his Dad and Grandfather did. His father died during World War I, but Adam still wants to go to war. This story tells about his experiences in Boot Camp and then in Okinawa where he has to live through some really hard challenges. He learns about friendship and fear during the war and he realizes anyone who fights in a war is a hero.

by Devin

Adam's father and his sailor crew died when the battleship Arizona sank during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. To his horror, Adam witnessed the sinking. In fact, he and two of his buddies were actually out in the harbor near the Arizona when it exploded and sank. The concussive wave from the huge sinking ship dumped Adam and his buddies from their rowboat right into Pearl Harbor.

At age seventeen, now Adam wants to join the war effort. He feels it is the honorable thing to do to avenge his father's death. Since he is not eighteen he cannot join the Marines because his mother won't sign waiver papers. Cleverly, Adam tells his mother he wants to visit his grandfather's farm on the East Coast because he is bored to death with life in Bakersfield, California.

Adam has little difficulty persuading his grandfather, a World War I veteran who has lost an arm, to sign for him. Within a very short time, Adam is in the Marines facing all the physical and mental duress imposed on his mind and body by his rigorous training. Adam refuses to drop out. He believes officers who tell him "the training will keep you alive in combat."

In Heroes Don't Run as a Marine graduate in the spring of 1945, Adam finds himself shipboard heading for the island of Okinawa, a last major Japanese stronghold before Japan itself. Strangely, his entire outfit lands from their LST without gunfire, yet Adam can hear and feel the formidable rumbling of distant guns and explosions at both ends of the island.

Sergeant Rosenthal leads Adam's frightened platoon over several hills toward the battlefront. Adam cannot believe the carnage he witnesses: dead bodies thrown askew, arms, legs, heads, lying about as if they were the dismembered parts of mannequins; and everywhere, destroyed vehicles either blown apart or burning and smoking. He is terrified but moves on.

Adam and his friend Ben engage a difficult uphill battle overtaking the caves and tunnels leading to the top of Okinawa. He watches in horror as he and his unit must kill hordes of Japanese soldiers, who are chased from their tunneled out hiding places, but who charge toward them as kamikaze warriors. Adam is sickened. Now he wishes he was back home, but he refuses to run. Heroes Don't Run.

In one trench-like foxhole, Adam sees a mortar flying directly toward his group of Marines. There is no time to scramble away; hardly a chance to utter any warning. What he feels next is a huge uplifting blast and a noise that deafens him--then nothing.

I will leave the outcome of this bloody tale to young readers who, like me, will keep gobbling up the pages of Heroes Don't Run to find out what happens to Adam, his best friend Ben, and brave Sergeant Rosenthal who tries his best to protect his men. Any high school youngster will find this book easy to follow with a vocabulary befitting his reading level.

This is not a story for the faint hearted because its action and descriptions are intense and bloody. Nevertheless, I would recommend the book to any reader who wants to glimpse the madness Marines faced first hand on the Okinawa battlefield during the waning days of WWII. It is easy to see why so many fighters who return home don't want to talk about war. All these men are heroes.

Other interesting reads:
A Boy at War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor
A Boy No More (Aladdin Historical Fiction)
We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder with the Marines Who Took Fallujah
Indestructible: The Unforgettable Story of a Marine Hero at the Battle of Iwo Jima

If you like books about war, Heroes Don't Run by Harry Mazer is for you.

In Bakersfield, CA a boy named Adam wanted to go to war to avenge his father's death. He goes to boot camp in Prairie Island, South Carolina and meets a friend. Suddenly he is shipped off to Okinawa, Japan and finds himself in the middle of the battlefield. Adam didn't expect to be searching caves and blowing up Japanese people. Will he make it home in one piece? Will he make it home alive at all?

We gave the book 4 stars because it was a good book, but we would have liked a little more war action.
BY: Garrett Earlywine& Jeremy Albrecht

If you like war books you'll like the gripping story, Heroes Don't Run by Harry Mazer. The story begins with Adam wanting to join the marines to avenge his father's death.

Adam, a 17 year old young man, loses his father that was aboard the USS Arizona. Adam wants to avenge his father's death at Pearl Harbor. It tells of Adam Pelko`s experiences in 1945 from Pearl Harbor to Okinawa. The book takes us on a journey from boot camp for Marines, then to home. Will he survive the explosion? Will he feel he avenged his father's death? Will he make it home alive? You must read the book to find out.

We recommend this book for all ages. If you like war books you'll like this one about
WW2. We give this book 5 stars.

by Johnny, Martin, and Rio