Like Eric Sloan’s “Diary of an Early American Boy,” “the King’s Broad Arrow” brings us to a time and place where wood was central to daily life. With it, people built their homes, shingled their roofs, heated and cooked. One person could ride a horse, but if you wanted to move a couple of people or anything of bulk or weight, one used a wooden sleigh or wagon. Wood was the stuff of tools and toys and trade. Boats and ships moved it along the coasts and over the ocean, boats and ships made of wood. So wood was valuable and the tall, straight, strong northern white pine was particularly valuable, strategically valuable to the British Navy as ship masts.
This last fact sets up the story as young Sam Nevens finds himself pulled into the fight to resist British exploitation of colonists and their most basic resource, their trees. We see how The Intolerable Acts were not simply unjust, but could leave people destitute. We follow Sam as exposure to the broader world and novel ideas expand his understanding of power and profit, policy and politics. As Sam absorbs the earth shaking ideas of Thomas Paine and thinkers ancient and contemporary, he considers afresh his obligation to not only himself and his family, but to greater society. These are questions my son faces today. What constitutes legitimate government action? When is dissent called for and how should it be expressed? Sam works through these questions all the while playing his part in course of the revolution.
Through Sam the reader also comes to know a bit of the personalities of major historical leaders and their motivations and challenges in a way that will bring for many a new depth of understanding about how amazing it was that the revolution was successful.
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Excellent and Very Entertaining Read!
An excellent and very entertaining read from start to finish with well developed characters that I was rooting for along the way! I loved watching Sam evolve as a young man and Patriot and also loved learning so much about the Revolution alongside him. What a wild ride and so well written that it feels like you’re right there with him fighting for liberty!
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Nachtwunsch
A wonderfully woven tale of the American Revolution
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 8, 2021