My Brother Sam Is Dead
James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier (1974)
“Two brothers. One war. No winners. A shattering story about what the Revolution actually cost the families who lived through it.”
At a Glance
Told by Tim Meeker, a boy in Tory-leaning Redding, Connecticut, during the American Revolution. His older brother Sam enlists with the Patriots against their father's wishes. Over five years of war, Tim watches his family torn apart: his father dies on a British prison ship, his brother is executed by his own army for a theft he likely didn't commit. Tim survives to old age but can never decide if the war was worth it.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
One of the first young adult novels to present the American Revolution as morally ambiguous rather than heroic. A National Book Award finalist in 1975. Regularly named to lists of the most important works of young adult historical fiction. Taught in nearly every American middle school as a counterpoint to more romantic treatments of the Revolution.
Diction Profile
Plain and colloquial — a boy's voice rendered honestly, with period-appropriate vocabulary in dialogue
Low