Same War, Different Perspectives

Johnny Tremain, Esther Forbes, New York, Houghton Mifflin 1998

My Brother Sam is Dead, James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier, Hudson MA, Pathways Publishing 2000

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes and My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier are two meticulously researched books which seem similar but have many differences. Each is about a young boy (Johnny is 14 in Johnny Tremain and Tim Meeker is 11 in My Brother Sam). Both books are set in around the same time and place: Johnny just before the American Revolution in Boston, Massachusetts, and My Brother Sam during the American Revolution in Redding Ridge, Connecticut. Both books are about growing up in a time of war.

So, what are the differences? One difference is Johnny lives in a big city, and Tim lives in a small town. Johnny lives in a patriotic household, and Tim lives with Loyalists. The main difference, however, is the characters' view of the world around them. Johnny is in the middle of the action and through a series of events meets up with a boy who is one of the semi-secret Sons of Liberty. Through this boy, Rab, he encounters such figures as John Hancock, John and Samuel Adams, and James Otis. Johnny is swept up in the fight for freedom. Johnny Tremain is not, however, a bloodthirsty book about good Americans fighting off bad British. The book has much more depth than that. Johnny even befriends some of the British soldiers. This is one of the many ways Forbes shows that even in a time of war everyone is still human.

Johnny Tremain has a very patriotic air to it, and the reader feels that the American Revolution was the right thing to do. James Otis explains it best: "The battle we win over the worst in England shall benefit the best in England. How well are they over there represented when it comes to taxes? Not very well. It will be better for them when we have won this war...So we hold up our torch--and do not forget it was lighted upon the fires of England--and we will set it as a new sun to lighten a world...It is all so much simpler than you think...We give all we have, lives, property, safety, skill....we fight, we die for a simple thing. Only that a man can stand up." A man can stand up, that's what this book is all about. Another way Forbes creates depth and meaning is that people do die, even people that the reader knows and loves. Again, James Otis: "We are lucky men...for we have a cause worth dying for. This honor is not given to every generation." That honor may not be given to every generation, but was certainly given to the first readers of Johnny Tremain. Johnny was published in 1943, just two years after the United States stepped into World War II.

On the other hand, My Brother Sam is Dead was published just after a much less popular war, the Vietnam War. My Brother Sam is about Tim, whose brother Sam runs off to "go play soldier boy" in George Washington's Continental Army. Tim does not take part in any famous events, unlike Johnny. Tim starts off neutral, then the Continentals come through and seize weapons. Tim begins to drift to the British side. Then the British Army comes marching through, and even though he is only a boy, they take Jerry Sanford, Tim's best friend, as a prisoner of war. Tim does not feel like being a Tory anymore. Tim's allegiances also go back and forth between his father, who has anti-war opinions, and his brother Sam's patriotism. Though Tim is not in the middle of the war, war has long fingers that stretch all the way to Redding Ridge, and Tim and his family feel the hard impact of war, such as lack of food and other supplies to run their tavern.

In My Brother Sam, Tim questions to a great extent what this war is all about. "I wasn't sure if Sam was right about the fighting anyway. It sounded right when he said it--that we should be free and not take orders from people who were so far away, and all that. But I figured there had to be more to it than Sam knew about. Father had never gone to college the way Sam had, but still I was pretty sure that he knew more than Sam."

A great difference between these books is that while Johnny Tremain never questions the American Revolution, My Brother Sam is Dead questions the American Revolution right from the beginning to the very end "...[T]hat leaves one last question: could the United States have made its way without all that agony and killing? That is probably a question that you will have to answer for yourself." That is an excerpt from the author's note in My Brother Sam. I think the reason for that difference lies in the times in which they were written. In 1943 most people in the United States did not question World War II. By the end of the Vietnam War it had little support.

These books are best when read together. Their ideas and perspectives give the reader a more complete understanding of the American Revolution because it is amazing that the same war can be so different for two separate people. No one's education is fully complete until he or she has read these two superb and moving books.

--Eoin Gaj is a 14-year-old homeschooler and student of dance who has volunteered for Peacework since he was seven.

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