Memorial Day is a time when Americans stop to reflect on the sacrifices that our soldiers have made for their country over the years. While it’s also an extra day off work and time to picnic with family and enjoy a barbecue with friends, we shouldn’t forget our soldiers and especially our first soldiers ironically called the Patriots though their whole existence was based around the premise that they were rebelling against their mother country England.
Growing up as a kid me and my sister, though very different in personality, talent and interests, both loved the book My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collins and Christopher Collins.
This children’s book tells the story of a young boy, Tim Meeker, who lives in a Tory town in Connecticut that opposes the recent rebellious rise up of their neighbors against the Crown. Tim’s brother, Sam, was sent off to college at the age of 16 to learn about business. Just over a year after he left, he turns up wearing the uniform of the Minutemen and plotting to steal his father’s Brown Bess so he can join the fight in Boston.
Sam’s ideas about war are pretty idealistic and when the British Lobsterbacks give the Minutemen a run for their money, he becomes a deserter which is punishable by death if he’s caught.
Now that the illusion of war has been replaced by the reality, Sam returns home to hide out in his home town. When push comes to shove, Sam is forced to surrender to his unit where he is executed for his desertion. Tim is witness to the punishment and carries it with him the rest of his life.
What’s important about this story is how the idea of rebellion against the Crown ended up tearing apart the Meeker family. Tim’s dad is a die-hard Tory as is most of his friends in town and they believe that rebelling against their English roots is against God’s will. Sam feels that he is not an Englishman like his father, but rather an American and worthy of freedom from a government that does not realize what is going on across the ocean. Tim’s mother is torn. She’s loyal to the Crown and her husband and also sees herself as an Englishman. However, she fears for her son’s life. Tim is torn by the lofty ideas that his brother brought home to him and the life that he has known forever. A child, he is unaware of the taxes imposed on the Colonists and so does not understand the reason for the need for “freedom.”
Sam and his Minutemen colleagues were the first ever American soldiers. Before that, any conflicts experienced in the Colonies were fought by Englishmen. After the Revolutionary War was won and America had its freedom, the Colonists became Americans.
This is one of my favorite history fiction pieces for children. What is yours?
