Once you have read Johnny Tremain, you will realize that it is a name that will always be with you, for your whole life, no matter where you go, or how you live your life.

You see, Johnny Tremain is not just a regular, common name, but the name of an amazing person, full of bravery, courage, fear, love, confusion, knowledge, and understanding. Despite being a fictional character, he is the kind of person you can just fall in love with by just reading about everything about him that makes him special and unique.

The mystery and magic about Johnny is hypnotic and indulging. You can't not fall in love with him, anticipating his next adventures, feeling his emotions, laughing along with jokes, and just feeling satisfied when you close the book. That is what a classical and historical book is and this book is truly classical and historical.

Johnny Tremain is about an adolesant boy growing up in Colonial Boston, Massachusets. After a terrible accident he is forced to leave his comfortable life style and make it on his own. On the way he encounters many unforgetable adventures and the book ends with a touching resolution in his personal life. I highly recomend Johnny Tremain to anybody who enjoys reading good books. This is a truely a good book.

It's hard to imagine now that this book was considered pop fiction when it was published in 1948. You'd now have to look deep into modern literary fiction to find a work as complex, nuanced, historically exciting and completely enjoyable as "Running of the Tide." Author Esther Forbes had a fine career as a historian and novelist, winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1943 for "Paul Revere and the World He Lived In." Her young adult novel "Johnny Tremain" still tops many school reading lists.

In "Running of the Tide, " Forbes turns her considerable historical skills to Salem, Massachusetts, at the turn of the 19th century. The Inmans are one of the town's oldest seafaring families, and they're facing a rough patch due to the loss of one of their ships by the eldest son, Dash. There are four Inman boys, and all but the youngest, Peter, go to sea. Dash is the most canny captain of the family, but because he lost a ship the grandmother who runs the family company punishes him by giving the captaincy of the family's beautiful new state-of-the-art ship to someone else. But there's a last minute change of plans, and it's Dash who gives the orders to hoist sail on the Victrix's maiden voyage. He asks seventeen-year-old Peter to tie up a few loose ends for him. How Peter, who adores Dash and has a serious crush on the woman Dash loves, ties up those ends entangles the family for decades.

The wealth of understanding Forbes brings to the New England of 1800 is a treat. The Yankee character, traditions, customs, dress, the role of women as both business leaders and "pretties", captains who can sail around the world and triple their profits but can't get across town because they can't drive a horse, new trade routes opening up, the lives on shore and on ship of people who may not see each other for years are all explored with an historian's intelligence and a novelist's panache. I first read this novel in college and have come back to it every time I need a really good, involving read. The first time I read the book it was great, but each time after that my respect for Esther Forbes has grown as I realize just how elegantly "Running of the Tide" is put together. As the book sails toward the final pages, the outcome is as inexorable and as haunting as the final scene in a Greek tragedy.

Paul Revere and the World He Lived in by Esther Forbes is a well written authoritative biography about Paul Revere. The book has a flowing but romantic aire to it... painting a portrait with words and describing the life and times of early New England and Boston in particular.

Paul Revere was a multifarious man displaying many talents as the book points out. Well written, flowing narrative, being easily readable and well documented are just a few of the wonderful traits that the author brings to the reader. It's enjoyable to read and you feel like your right there seeing everything transpire right before your eyes. That's a talent raely found in writing and no wonder this book won a Pulitzer Prize in history.

This book is well worth reading and gives the reader a good foundation as to what life was like for people from 1735 - 1818. As well, this should be one of the books used in our schools for teaching American History. The author really brings out a love for her subject in this book.

I was pleased to find out that there is a newer edition of this book. The one I have is the 1942 edition and rather worn. I used sections from this book to help document certain events that occured during the time period. The social studies text we used didn't do justice to events such as the Boston Massacre and the Battle of Lexington & Concord, both events where Paul Revere played a part. Forbes detailing of events and characters helped to bring these events alive for my students...they also got to see that not all the colonists were noble, freedom-fighters, but that propagandizing was alive and kicking even then. I would heartily recommend this book as a resource for American History teachers!

This book deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize in History. It examines the life of Paul Revere in the setting of the era he lived in, but goes beyond a mere biography to include wonderful anecdotes about the Revolutionary War period. Oh, and it turns out that Paul Revere was a really nice, decent guy; he just is little remembered because he never turned into a politician. I recommend this book without reservation to every living soul on this planet!

Tells about famous American patriot/silversmith Paul Revere and his famous ride to Lexington and Concord. Well known story but excellent.

When Paul was about fourteen,his farther was mad because Paul's friend Micky was getting beat by his master. Mr. Revere was going to see if Micky's master would sell him. Paul was going to tell his friend Micky in the morning but Micky wasn't there. He was gone but Paul and his father looked for months for Micky.

The story is one often told: a high-spirited young girl rouses the jealousy and suspicion of her Puritan neighbors. Her non-conformity gives rise to an occassion for her to be accused as a witch, and once accused, she is doomed. The real genius of this book is not in the plot per se (though the addition of the lover who takes advantage of the situation to convince Doll that she really is a witch and he as a demon is her appointed mate is a plausible and original twist. It is often overlooked that many of the people who perished in the witch-crazes believed themselves to be guilty, whether because of mental illness, infectious mass hysteria, or the confusion brought about by their terror during interogation and torture.)

But, as I was saying, the real genius in this book lies in the narrative style and tone. Esther Forbes makes the risky but ultimately successful decision to structure this book like those of the era for which the events of the plot would be recent past: readers of Defoe's Moll Flanders will feel a jolt of recognition at many of the odd capitalizations and lengthy chapter headings. In keeping with this, the narrator appears always to disapprove of the 'witch' and approve of the pious townspeople who persecute her. However, Forbes' skill is such that the underlying message - that Doll has been entrapped and destroyed by prejudice, superstition, and spite - is always clear in the subtle ironies of situations. The result is that the tone throughout is one of impending doom, and the sense of the injustice done to Doll is far keener than it might have been had the narrator railed against it.

This is a haunting, exquisitely crafted, work of fiction, which should be judged on its own considerable literary merits rather than for its imagined relationship to any particular set of historical events. I'd especially recommend to it to those who have enjoyed "Lolly Willowes", by Sylvia Townsend Warner, or the work of Shirley Jackson ("The Lottery", "The Haunting of Hill House") Forbes does a marvelous job at creating a voice which belongs to the seventeenth century, while subtly incorporating a very modern concern with the darker impulses of human nature. (Come to think of it, fans of "A High Wind in Jamaica" should like this as well.) Forbes recreates the form, atmosphere, and tone of a seventeenth-century chapbook, in which the most uncanny events are presented as literally true, but the twentieth-century reader will have their own perspective on the short and tragic life of Doll Bilby, "who took a fiend to love."

this is a masterful story, well written. the style is superior to much modern fiction of today. it 'feels' like a biography. i am interested in the sociology of the salem witch trials & have read much of the fiction & nonfiction regarding that period, and this novel is one of the best things i have read.

I liked this book and you will as well. Esther Forbes is great.

Johnny Tremain Written By:Esther Forbes Published by:Dell Publishing Co. 1969

Johnny Tremain is an amazing book about a young boy's life during the start of the Revolutionary War. When Johnny injured his hand while working as a silversmith, he is sent to find a new master that could make use of him. Then he meets a boy name Rabb. Jonnhy leaves the home and family he lived in for most of his life and gets a job a newspaper printing shop with Rabb. They become almost best friends. His former masters daughter, that Johnny likes, moves in with another family too. In fact, one of the richest families on the wharf. Johnny later discovers that he is a relative of one of the richest men on the wharf. Johnny takes the job of a newspaper delivery boy. He rides one of the fastest and most reliable horses on the wharf, which is named Goblin. Even the soldiers hand pick him to deliver their letters. Johnny Tremain takes you right into the action of the Boston Tea party and the biggining of the Revolutionary War. I would highly recomend that someone who likes historicle fiction. I think its a book that someone of any age would like. Its a really good book. Its even a Newbery Award winner. It is actually one of the best books I've ever read.

Johnny Tremain is a wonderful book to read. It is not a completely true story, but the setting, the lifestyles, and some of the characters were true. The story took place both before and during the beginning of the Revolutionary War.
Johnny Tremain is a boy in Boston who is tossed around between lifestyles, as well as friends. He begins as an apprentice for a silversmith, and he meets the girl he is to marry there. Then a burn cripples his hand to the point where he cannot work with silver anymore. So he goes to another lifestyle, and meets another friend there. When that friend turns 18, the war has just begun, so he fights in the fighting that broke out in Lexington. Johnny is left in Boston with the few people who had not fled. He runs errands for Patriots, and he finds himself doing so often, forming his 3rd lifestyle.
This book is an exciting, thrilling story, and yet it keeps within historical truth. It keeps to the real ways of life back then, yet it is a fun story to read. The book is a bit slow moving, but it is still a "page turner". The book is written by a woman of the late 1800's and about half the 1900's. She had written many books, but until her two famous books were released, her books were not well known. The book that got her well known, which was the one just before Johnny Tremain, was a true biography of Paul Revere who was also a very important character in Johnny Tremain). Soon after, she wrote her Newberry Award winning novel Johnny Tremain.
Johnny Tremain became popular, for it was one of few books which were successfully written as an exciting story, that stayed within historical fact. It is very difficult to make up an exciting story about something that could quite possibly have happened, keep historical facts correct, and still manage to keep the story as exciting and thrilling as Johnny Tremain. Therefore, Johnny Tremain is a wonderful historical fiction novel.

When I went to read this book for school, my older brother said, "Oh yeah, I read that and it was real good up to the part where he burned his hand, but after that it was real boring." Well, as usual, I have to disagree with my ignorant brother who totally missed all of the great character development that Johnny goes through as a result of his injury. Reading this book is like having a ringside seat at the opening battle of the Revolutionary War. We studied the American Revolution in Social Studies right after I read Johnny Tremain and I could just picture Rab standing there on the Lexington Green, facing down all those British officers on horseback with that gun he loved so much. Rab was like my brother: always looking for something violent and gross to get involved in. You'll see what happens to him (not that my brother was probably paying attention.) I felt the sorriest for Pumpkin. I think he would have been very happy as an American if he'd only been given the chance. Overall, I'm glad we won the war. I guess we have guys like Rab to thank for that. God bless America!!!

This book was kind of boring. We read it in our english class. IT took a long time to get a plot