Interest Level:
6-8
Lexile Framework:
840L
Grade Level Equivalent:
5.3
Guided Reading Level:
Z
Age:
8-12
Genre:
Classics, Historical Fiction
Subject:
American Revolution, Courage and Honor
Fourteen-year-old Johnny Tremain is an apprentice silversmith with a promising future ahead of him. The middle of two other apprentices he bunks with, he always has the upper hand. Working with Mr. Lapham for two years, Johnny has produce admiral work, and has risen in ranks, no longer doing the mundane shop chores like fetching charcoal and water. Johnny knows his power and revels in it, even though as an apprentice, he is little more than a slave until he's served his master for seven years. He's nearly lured away by Paul Revere, and he dreams of how he'll set up his own shop when at last he is a master craftsman. One day, John Hancock places an order at Lapham's shop for a sugar basin, and Johnny painstakingly sets to work on its intricate design. Working stealthily on Sunday to get the basin finished for Hancock in time, Johnny, feeling nervous and rushed, burns his hand in fact, the inside of his right hand is coated with solid silver. Forever crippled, his apprenticeship is abruptly over, as well as his dreams of becoming a master silversmith and one day having a shop as fine as Paul Revere's. But as events in Boston brew towards the outbreak of battle with the British, Johnny Tremain suddenly has a new role. He becomes a messenger for the Sons of Liberty, and becomes a part of the currents and undercurrents leading to the Boston Tea Party and Battle of Lexington.
Two dramatic years in his country's history are seen through the shrewd eyes of Johnny Tremain, whose life becomes dramatically bound up with some of the United State's most important patriots. Esther Forbes penned this work of historical fiction, which won the Newbery Award in 1944. Filled with danger, excitement, and events that were crucial in our country's birth, Johnny Tremain remains a modern classic.






