Johnny Tremain (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This story of a tragically injured young silversmith who ends up hip-deep in the American Revolution is inspiring, exciting, and sad. Winner of the prestigious Newbery Award in 1944, Esther Forbes's story has lasted these 50-plus years by including adventure, loss, courage, and history in a wonderfully written, very dramatic package. It's probably not great for little guys but mature 11-year-olds or older will find it a great adventure.

Review

"This is Esther Forbes at her brilliant best. She has drawn the character of Johnny with such sympathy and insight that he may take his place with Jim Hawkins, Huck Finn and other young immortals." -- Review --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Yearling; 28th edition (April 1, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440442508
• ISBN-13: 978-0440442509
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (300 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #52,251 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deformed hands galore!, August 9, 2004

By	E. R. Bird "Ramseelbird" (Manhattan, NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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. John Hancock comes off as a bit of a rich fop, and Sam Adams is seen gleefully rubbing his hands together over the prospect of upcoming destruction. So many stories create villains so ridiculously evil that they haven't a single solitary redeeming characteristic and heroes pious to the point of sainthood. "Johnny Tremain" could easily have fallen into that trap, but it doesn't. Instead, it gives a remarkably thoughtful approach to the nature of enemies, war, and freedom.

The book is long, granted. Also, there are numerous spying/battle sections in which I had to continually backtrack through the text to figure out, "Now why is Johnny doing that?". The best way to lure kids today with this book might be to sell it as a Revolutionary spy book. I mean, Johnny really does become a kind of secret agent for the Yankees. He knows how to get information out of people and how to find out important English secrets. Best of all, the story has a naturalistic writing style that's easy to get through once you get going. If you want to give your kids a Newbery award winner that's as memorable and fascinating today as it was the day it was written, I cannot recommend, "Johnny Tremain" enough. Ignore the picture of the saintly boy on the cover. This is a book of adventure, pride, and war.

28 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Historical Fiction!, April 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Johnny Tremain (Hardcover)

Esther Forbes' story of young Boston boy's adventures during the early days of the American Revolution, "Johnny Tremain," is a classic of children's historical fiction. As such it has been required reading for generations of middle school students, and assigned reading material, regardless of quality, will always raise the hackles of some students. Thus the bad reviews here should be taken with a grain of salt.

The strength of this book is how it weaves the fictional story of Johnny Tremain, who had been a promising silversmith apprentice until an accident crippled his hand, with the historical events and people of Revolutionary era Boston. Johnny deals with the loss of his trade, his attempt to reclaim his birthright, a burgeoning romance with the daughter of his former master, and an increasing involvement with the revolutionary activities of the Sons of Liberty. The book brings to life the era of the Revolution and reminds the reader that the simple hope "that a man can stand up" did not come without tragedy. "Johnny Tremain" is a true classic, and makes for a great read. (Even TV's worst student, Bart Simpson, loved reading it- "They should call this book Johnny Deformed Hand.")

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Wish I Could Rate This Book Even Higher, March 4, 2005

By	L. M Young (Marietta, GA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.