12 books like Brother Sam Trilogy

“To the youth of the world in whose spirit and courage rest the hope of eventual freedom for all mankind.” Thus begins Disney’s film version of this novel. Like Walt himself, this novel inspired a love of the history of our revolution in me at a young age.

Did you know that Liberty Square in the Magic Kingdom is from this story? Johnny learns early in the story that “pride cometh before a fall,” but his personal struggles become subsumed in a cause greater than himself.

The author comes from an old Yankee family with ties to the revolution, and so do I.  The commission of James Churchill as a Captain in the Massachusetts militia, signed by John Hancock, still hangs in the farmhouse where I grew up. It’s in her blood, and that comes through in this timeless classic. 

The father’s character in this story reminds me of my own WWII Marine father, and what the Young Adam goes through on that horrible, bloody morning on Lexington Green, I imagine, was like what my father as a teen went through on Saipan.

There is a plus here of a sweet romance mixed in. When I think of those militiamen on that green, I think of a row of my drinking buddies from our neighborhood sportsmen’s club, where I grew up. They wouldn’t stand a chance against British regulars.

We do not know to this day who fired that first shot or from what side it came, but idealism should not lead to foolhardiness. They should have dispersed sooner. Again, another coming-of-age story with grit and realism. 

Paul Revere’s name is famous, but I loved how this book made his home life real. Sarah, the middle child in a large family, reflects the whispering, the suspicions, and the taking sides among their friends as the British take over Boston. Sarah fears for her father when he begins to ride to warn nearby towns; now he’s a marked man. More than the history, Sarah’s regret at waiting too long to make up with a dear friend warns modern readers to learn from her.

I love to find “hidden gems” in history. Ona Judge is a gem. First published in 2017, Never Caught, the Story of Ona Judge is a biography that reads like an engaging novel. It depicts the life of George and Martha Washington’s young enslaved girl that grows to a young woman in the shadows of the most powerful couple in our new nation. At age 16, Ona leaves Mount Vernon to accompany President Washington and Martha while they live in New York and then Philadelphia. She is treated splendidly, but she is still property. This terrible truth crashes upon Ona when Martha, wanting to give the absolute best gift she can to her difficult, disagreeable, and stubborn granddaughter, decides to give her Ona – her most cherished possession, as a wedding gift. Rather than be property to be gifted and given, Ona escapes. This book shows how President… show more.

I couldn’t put down the story of Isabel, a fictional Black teenager who lived through the American Revolution in New York City.

The book covers everything from the assassination plot against George Washington to the fire that burned much of the city in September 1776, along with the everyday injustices of eighteenth-century slavery. The book gives the reader a true feel for the Black experience in Revolutionary New York.

Each chapter starts with an excerpt from a real Revolutionary document. It’s geared at young adult readers, but this is not your grandmother’s Johnny Tremain. I loved this book and the remainder of the trilogy that followed it.

Many an idealistic young law student like me felt that jolt in our spine early on when we saw up in the balcony of that courthouse a sleepy Scout being told, “Stand up, Jean Louise. Your father’s passin’.”

The movie is as faithful to the novel as the medium would allow. The novel is told entirely from Scout’s POV and not only focuses upon the racism of the time and place, but also upon her coming of age as a tomboy and being told to act “As a little girl should.”

The book offers more to those of us for whom the rule of law and not of men is a passion, especially in Finch’s closing: “There is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of Rockefeller, a stupid man the equal of Einstein… That institution, gentlemen, is a court.” 

I have re-read this classic several times since I was a child.

The abridged version I read in 4th grade. RLS himself said, “The characters took the bit in their teeth; all at once they became detached from the flat paper, they turned their backs on me and walked off bodily…”

Not long after being introduced to Alan Breck Stewart, we hear him exclaim, in a ship’s cabin filled with the blood of villains he has shed, “Ah Davy, am I no’ a bonnie fighter!” How often, as a lad, I imagined myself taking on that crew with my broadsword!

Young David Balfour, in his quest to get back his inheritance, learns from Alan and his complex character that the Jacobite cause in Scotland is not clearly a matter of right and wrong. Did Alan kill “the Red Fox”? This is debated among Highlanders to this day! 

The men who signed the Declaration of Independence are universally referred to as “Signers.”

In family trees and genealogies, you’ll often find this word appended to their names as a badge of honor, delineating them from later and earlier relations who bore the same name. The men who signed the Constitution, however, or typically referred to as Framers or Founders; that’s the reason behind Fradin’s title.

This is a great book for kids, grades 4 to 7. The maps and etchings by illustrator Michael McCurdy are charming, and help set the scene and mood of each man’s story. I think it can be a helpful book for teachers and homeschoolers looking for short readings to help bring the Constitution to life in the classroom.

Because so much of the US’s focus is centered on the Fourth of July and the date 1776, it’s easy for people to assume that after the colonies declared independence, life in the new nation was simply wonderful, and we never looked back. Wrong!

Within two years after the end of the Revolutionary War, the nation was in serious trouble. The nascent government had no Army or Navy, no power to print or mint currency, and intentionally weak leadership because the last thing anyone wanted was a tyrannical ruler. Something had to be done if the nation was going to survive.

Stewart brings an attorney’s mind and a creative writer’s eye to the story of that sweltering summer in Philadelphia. Narrative nonfiction at its best. We see how the brainy, nerdy James Madison convinces George Washington to lead a delegation of men to design a strong working framework for government.… show more.

I’m not a Constitutional or legal scholar. If anything, I’d be considered a biographer, since my book focuses on the life stories of the men behind the document. For that reason, I’m deliberately omitting any books that discuss the ramifications of the Constitution in modern times.

But I do enjoy this book, by a journalist and Harvard Law School graduate, which carefully breaks down each of the Constitution’s seven Articles and 27 Amendments, and carefully spells out in plain language the meaning of each. Yes, there are plenty of readers who will take issue with the specifics, but I find that Monk’s treatment is even-handed, and she sprinkles the text with asides, quotes, and opinions from top thinkers along the way.