Collier, James L. My Brother Sam is Dead. New York: Scholastic. 1974.
I don’t know what made me pick up this grade school book. A strong desire to finish the books I should have read in my youth? Probably not, since I’d never heard of this one before. I was wandering the stacks of our Education Resource Center when I stumbled across it. It looked interesting so I gave it a chance…and read it in one day.
It’s the life of a kid in the midst of the American Revolution. His brother (Sam, obviously) joins the fight while the rest of the family tries to remain neutral. All sorts of tragedies befall the Meeker family and I found myself praying for the book to finish. I didn’t think there would be a happy ending (judging by the title) and I was right – there wasn’t.
Interestingly enough, the towns and even some of the characters are nonfictional. It makes me want to travel to Connecticut just to find the tavern, the fishing grounds, the trade route…just to stand in the path of history.
~*LunaSea*~ 