Ben and his friends are in school in Boston on April 19th, 1775, when they hear the news that war has erupted with the British soldiers they've been living side by side with for months. They rush out of class and follow the throngs of British reinforcements marching toward Concord. The boys end up trapped in Cambridge when returning troops seal off the city of Boston. Now the boys are suddenly stuck in the middle of a war, with no way to reach their families. But rather than finding this prospect alarming, the young boys are excited to help the Patriots. Ben becomes a clerk to the jovial Israel Putnam, commander of the provincial army. When the Battle of Bunker Hill erupts, Ben watches the whole thing from Prospect Hill, a vantage point overlooking both the battleground and Boston, and is both awed and dismayed by all he witnesses. For four months during the siege of Boston, Ben serves the Patriots, until the day he is surprisingly reunited with his father. Then he begins an apprenticeship with famous revolutionary newsman Isaiah Thomas, and in March 1776 helps set into type the news of the British leaving Boston, and later reports on the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
History comes alive in this gripping account of a young boy caught up in the start of the Revolutionary War. Based on an episode in National Book Award-winning author Nathaniel Philbrick's New York Times bestseller Bunker Hill- A City, A Siege, A Revolution, this engrossing story allows readers to experience history from a child's perspective, and Wendell Minor's stunning paintings will transport readers back to the early days of the Revolutionary War.
Benjamin Russell is in school on the morning of April 19th, 1775, when his teacher announces, "The war's begun, and you may run!" Ben knew this day was coming; after all, tensions had been mounting between the colonists and the British troops ever since the Boston Tea Party. And now they have finally reached the breaking point. Ben and his friends excitedly rush out of their classroom to bear witness, and follow the throngs of redcoats marching out of Boston toward Concord. Much to Ben's surprise, Boston is sealed off later that day-leaving the boys stuck outside the city, in the middle of a war, with no way to reach their families. But Ben isn't worried-he's eager to help the Patriots! He soon becomes a clerk to the jovial Israel Putnam, a general in the provincial army. For months he watches the militia grow into an organized army, and when the Battle of Bunker Hill erupts, Ben is awed by the bravery of the Patriots, although saddened by the toll war takes. He later goes on to become an apprentice at a Revolutionary newspaper, and it's a happy day when they get to report on the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Praise for Bunker Hill- A City, A Siege, A Revolution
"Philbrick guides us beautifully through Revolutionary Boston, with the Battle of Bunker Hill as his story's grand climax."-The New York Times Book Review
"Masterly narrative... Philbrick tells the complex story superbly... gripping book."-The Wall Street Journal
"A masterpiece of narrative and perspective.... This is not only... the greatest American story. It is also the American story."-The Boston Globe
"You will delight in the story and the multitude of details Philbrick offers up."-USA Today
Author Biography:
Nathaniel Philbrick (www.nathanielphilbrick.com) is the author of the New York Times bestsellers In the Heart of the Sea (National Book Award); Mayflower (Pulitzer Prize finalist); Bunker Hill (New England Book Award); and most recently Valiant Ambition. His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Smithsonian magazine, the New York Times Book Review, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe. He has appeared on the Today Show, the Morning Show, Dateline, PBS's American Experience, C-SPAN, and NPR. He lives in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Wendell Minor (www.minorart.com)'s popular picture books include Daylight Starlight Wildlife, My Farm Friends, How Big Could Your Pumpkin Grow?, The Buffalo Are Back (by Jean Craighead George), and Look to the Stars (by Buzz Aldrin). His paintings are in the permanent collections of the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the US Coast Guard, and NASA, and he had a major retrospective, Wendell Minor's America, at the Norman Rockwell Museum in 2014. He lives in Washington, Connecticut.
