Name: Johnny Tremain
Rating: 3.628571428571429 (35 reviews)
ISBN: 0786270667

Esther Forbes

After injuring his hand, a silversmith's apprentice in Boston becomes a messenger for the Sons of Liberty in the days before the American Revolution.

Johnny Tremain

Julia Seiser

I gave this book a five. I gave it a five because I loved how the author was teaching us about the war while telling a story. I’ve read books about the revolutionary war, but this one is by far the best I’ve ever read.

Esther Hoskins Forbes

Johnny Tremain, winner of the 1944 Newbery Medal, is one of the finest historical novels ever written for children. As compelling today as it was fifty years ago, to read this riveting novel is to live through the defining events leading up to the American Revolutionary War. Fourteen-year old Johnny Tremain, an apprentice silversmith with a bright future ahead of him, injures his hand in a tragic accident, forcing him to look for other work. In his new job as a horse-boy, riding for the patriotic newspaper, the Boston Observer, and as a messenger for the Sons of Liberty, he encounters John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Dr. Joseph Warren. Soon Johnny is involved in the pivotal events shaping the American Revolution from the Boston Tea Party to the first shots fired at Lexington. Powerful illustrations by American artist Michael McCurdy, bring to life Esther Forbes' quintessential novel of the American Revolution.

Chris Aldrich

I somehow missed being forced to read this in grade school, so I'm going back to take a look, particularly as I'm going to try to work my way through some of the Newberry Medalists I'd somehow managed to miss as well.

Overall an interesting plot and likely well researched as apparently Esther Forbes won a Pulitzer Prize for another book she released as a historian the same year this was released. Interestingly, this is probably the better remembered and more widely read book of the two. I'll have to go back and look at her other effort.

Though the plot was generally interesting, it would have been somewhat more interesting if there were either a follow up book or some other sort of coda about Tremain's ultimate story, though for dramatic purposes ending it the way it was done was probably best though somewhat too quick for my taste.

Most interesting is the time period in which this was written and the state of American nationalism at the original event, at the time of its writing, at the point that I would most likely have read it circa 1985 and now at the beginning of 2013. This is the thing which has most markedly changed for the time periods.

Almost as fun as reading it is reading some of the reviews of it on goodreads as many are written by youngsters who just don't understand history or why it's important.

Elizabeth McInerney 

Jane Mount

Gillian Rose

Jessica Deaner

Riley 🫶

Julia M

A young apprentice silversmith growing up in Boston during the Revolutionary War becomes involved with such patriots as Hancock, Otis, and Samuel Adams.

Johnny Tremain

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