Illustrated by
Lynd Ward
"If Jonathan Lyte Tremain never lived in the flesh, he lives vividly with the men of his time in this book. So we dare to put him among the people of importance.
"He is a boy, an apprentice to a silver-smith in Boston, when we meet him just before the American Revolution. Casting the handle of a sugar basin for John Hancock, he seriously burns his right hand. He is crippled, the work that he loves must be given up—forever. Johnny goes through some hard and bitter times before he finds his work in the struggle that is to free the Colonies from British rule. The solution comes through the young printer, who likes Johnny and befriends him. Rab, too, is a 'person of importance.'...
"This story of Johnny Tremain is almost uncanny in its 'aliveness.' Esther Forbes's power to create, and to recreate, a face, a voice, a scene takes us as living spectators to the Boston Tea Party, to the Battles of Lexington and of North Creek. It takes us, with Johnny, to the secret meetings of the Sons of Liberty, to the secret training of the Minute Men...."
Saturday Review of Literature
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