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    A Boy at War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor
    A Boy at War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor
    A Boy at War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor
    Ebook115 pages1 hour

    A Boy at War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor

    By Harry Mazer

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    They rowed hard, away from the battleships and the bombs. Water sprayed over them. The rowboat pitched one way and then the other. Then, before his eyes, the Arizona lifted up out of the water. That enormous battleship bounced up in the air like a rubber ball and split apart. Fire burst out of the ship. A geyser of water shot into the air and came crashing down. Adam was almost thrown out of the rowboat. He clung to the seat as it swung around. He saw blue skies and the glittering city. The boat swung back again, and he saw black clouds, and the Arizona, his father's ship, sinking beneath the water.

    -- from A Boy at War

    "He kept looking up, afraid the planes would come back. The sky was obscured by black smoke....It was all unreal: the battleships half sunk, the bullet holes in the boat, Davi and Martin in the water."

    December 7, 1941:

    On a quiet Sunday morning, while Adam and his friends are fishing near Honolulu, a surprise attack by Japanese bombers destroys the fleet at Pearl Harbor.

    Even as Adam struggles to survive the sudden chaos all around him, and as his friends endure the brunt of the attack, a greater concern hangs over his head: Adam's father, a navy lieutenant, was stationed on the USS Arizona when the bombs fell. During the subsequent days Adam -- not yet a man, but no longer a boy -- is caught up in the war as he desperately tries to make sense of what happened to his friends and to find news of his father.

    Harry Mazer, whose autobiographical novel, The Last Mission, brought the European side of World War II to vivid life, now turns to the Pacific theater and how the impact of war can alter young lives forever.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
    Release dateJun 26, 2012
    ISBN9781442472112
    A Boy at War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor
    Author

    Harry Mazer

    Harry Mazer is the author of many books for young readers, including Please, Somebody Tell Me Who I Am; My Brother Abe; the Boy at War trilogy; The Wild Kid; The Dog in the Freezer; The Island Keeper; and Snow Bound. His books have won numerous honors, including a Horn Book honor and an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults citation. Along with his wife, Norma Fox Mazer, Harry received an ALAN award in 2003 for outstanding contribution to adolescent literature. He lives in Montpelier, Vermont.

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    Reviews for A Boy at War

    3.5/5

    8 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I borrowed this book from one of our ELD teachers, who uses this first book as well as the other two in the series, with her high school aged English learners.As a hi-lo book, A Boy At War functions well. The story is engaging. A boy and his friends are fishing in Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on the morning of December 7, 1941, and each of them is caught up in the tragedy in a different way. Adam Pelko has to confront the death of his father, a commander on the USS Arizona, while trying to find his way home to his mother and sister. He is swept up in the turmoil, as he is mistaken for a young soldier and is put to work by a small troop. There is plenty of action, and the story is dramatic as Adam sees one of his friends killed and is separated from the other.The language is appropriate for students reading at approximately 5th grade level (lexile level 530) and has many features of good hi-lo books. It is relatively short--112 pages-- and the type is large enough that struggling readers would feel confident instead of intimidated. Because the events at Pearl Harbor are a part of the eleventh grade American history curriculum, even students as old as 16 would feel validated, as opposed to babied, if assigned this book.The characters are strongly delineated and easily distinguished from one another with very little description, and the story is told chronologically, without any shifts in perspective. Sentences are relatively short and the vocabulary is simple. More difficult words are well-defined in context, particularly military terminology and Hawaiian words.According to the teacher from whom I borrowed the book, her students love this book and the next two in the series, each of which they read in her class. I also read the reviews on Amazon.com and this book seems very popular among young readers.Although this book is certainly appropriate for younger readers, ages 10-14, older students who are also struggling readers will find plenty to interest them here.
    • 3/5
      V. short and exciting. A bit didactic, but after all that's why I grabbed it from the thrift store - I wanted to learn a bit about the Pearl Harbor aspect of WWII. Probably excellent for a male reluctant reader - I recommend teachers of 5th-10th grade have it in their classrooms.

      Seemed well researched - I just question a reference to WWI - in the weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor had we already renamed The Great War?
    • 3/5
      Okay, I have some feedback for this series to report, finally. One of my students really likes it and gives it 4-stars. He's a good reader and primarily loves fantasy (Eragon/Eldest are faves) with an above-average interest in WWII, and he says it gives "just enough detail about his background and the war situation." He read the whole series in 1 week (and I'm sure). So there you have it.

      Again, this review is not mine (it bored me too much to even finish), but rather a testimonial of a 7th grade student.
    • 4/5
      This is a good book. It was interesting being in the middle in the action. Also, I learned alot about World War II too!
    • 4/5
      Even though this book is about the beginning of a war (World War II), the main character is a boy, and the story involves injuries, blood, and getting shot (which is why it is more of a boy book than a girl book), I enjoyed it. Harry Mazer did a good job writing the book and did a good job creating his characters. I think Adam is a character they'd be able to relate to, especially if they have a parent who is in the army. The book has tense moments, when Adam is trying to find and help is friends after the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, and it draws you in further.Though the book is thin and easy to read, I think it is more appropriate for older kids because of the war related storyline. A 4th grader would enjoy it and if he was mature it wouldn't be bad, but I think it'd have to be something a parent decided if he was ready for.
    • 4/5
      This is a book about a boy who gets involved with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and is forced to grow up all in one momentous day.This book is very short and quick, but that is what makes it so powerful - it is dynamic and very fast-paced.This is a very good book... there are also 2 sequels.

    Book preview

    A Boy at War - Harry Mazer

    Cover_Page

    He kept looking up, afraid the planes would come back. The sky was obscured by black smoke. . . . It was all unreal: the battleships half sunk, the bullet holes in the boat, Davi and Martin in the water.

    DECEMBER 7, 1941: On a quiet Sunday morning, while Adam and his friends are fishing near Honolulu, a surprise attack by Japanese bombers destroys the fleet at Pearl Harbor.

    Even as Adam struggles to survive the sudden chaos all around him, and as his friends endure the brunt of the attack, a greater concern hangs over his head: Adam’s father, a navy lieutenant, was stationed on the USS Arizona when the bombs fell. During the subsequent days Adam—not yet a man, but no longer a boy—is caught up in the war as he desperately tries to make sense of what happened to his friends and to find news of his father.

    Harry Mazer, whose autobiographical novel, The Last Mission, brought the European side of World War II to vivid life, now turns to the Pacific theater and how the impact of war can alter young lives forever.

    They rowed hard, away from the battleships and the bombs. Water sprayed over them. The rowboat pitched one way and then the other. Then, before his eyes, the Arizona lifted up out of the water. That enormous battleship bounced up in the air like a rubber ball and split apart. Fire burst out of the ship. A geyser of water shot into the air and came crashing down. Adam was almost thrown out of the rowboat. He clung to the seat as it swung around. He saw blue skies and the glittering city. The boat swung back again, and he saw black clouds, and the Arizona, his father’s ship, sinking beneath the water.

    —from A Boy at War

    HARRY MAZER is the author of many books for young readers, including The Wild Kid, The Dog in the Freezer, The Island Keeper, and Snow Bound. His books have won numerous honors, including Horn Book Honor List and American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults citations. He lives in Jamesville, New York, and New York City.

    Of the genesis of A Boy at War, Harry Mazer writes: World War II was my war. It began for the United States with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I was a kid then, but I remember the excitement. The war was real the way my team, the New York Yankees, and their archrival, the Brooklyn Dodgers, were real, something to read about, bigger and more important than the boring stuff of ordinary life. Every day there was fresh news: battles to read about, places to locate on the globe, new words to sound out, and maps to pore over, the attacks and counterattacks marked with thick, curving arrows. I had no sense of the human cost of these battles. More than anything, I envied and admired the older guys from the neighborhood, home on leave in their crisp new uniforms. My greatest fear was that the war would end before I was old enough to take part.

    Jacket illustration © 2001 by Rene Milot

    Jacket design by Paul Zakris and Mark Siegel

    VISIT US ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB Kids.SimonandSchuster.com

    Simon & Schuster

    Books For Young Readers

    Simon & Schuster, New York

    Half_TitlepictureTitle_Page

    Also by HARRY MAZER:

    The Wild Kid

    The Dog in the Freezer

    SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

    An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

    1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

    www.SimonandSchuster.com

    Text copyright © 2001 by Harry Mazer

    Map on p. ii copyright © 2001 by Robert Romagnoli

    All rights reserved including the right of reproduction

    in whole or in part in any form.

    SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

    is a trademark of Simon & Schuster.

    Book design by Paul Zakris.

    The text for this book is set in 11-point Janson.

    Island of Oahu on page 103 reprinted, by permission, from Hawaiian War Years, 1941–1945.

    © 1950 by Gwenfred Allen, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, Hawaii.

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Mazer, Harry.

    A boy at war : a novel of Pearl Harbor / by Harry Mazer.

    p. cm.

    Summary: While fishing with his friends off Honolulu on December 7,

    1941, teenaged Adam is caught in the midst of the Japanese attack

    and through the chaos of the subsequent days tries to find his father, a

    naval officer who was serving on the U.S.S. Arizona when the bombs fell.

    ISBN 0-689-84161-2

    1. Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), Attack on, 1941—Juvenile fiction.

    [1. Pearl Harbor (Hawaii), Attack on, 1941—Fiction.

    2. World War, 1939-1945—Causes—Fiction.

    3. Hawaii—History—1900-1959—Fiction.] I. Title.

    PZ7.M47397 Bo 2001

    [Fic]—dc21     00-049687

    ISBN-13: 978-14424-7211-2 (ebook)

    FOR MY SON, JOE

    Contents

    Acknowledgments

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 6

    Chapter 7

    Chapter 8

    Chapter 9

    Chapter 10

    Chapter 11

    Chapter 12

    Chapter 13

    Chapter 14

    Chapter 15

    Chapter 16

    Chapter 17

    Chapter 18

    Chapter 19

    Chapter 20

    Chapter 21

    Chapter 22

    Chapter 23

    Author’s Note

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    My thanks to Mary Pope Osborne and Ron Savage for sharing their memories of growing up in the military, and to Solomon Kaulukukui, Jr., for his patience and good humor in unfailingly responding to my many queries about Hawaiian life.

    Nobody, however young, returns from war still a boy.

    —SAMUEL HYNES, Flights of Passage: Reflections of a WWII Aviator

    Drop me off here, Mom, Adam said. They were a couple of blocks from the school.

    Why? I don’t mind driving.

    Mom! He couldn’t control his impatience. This is high school. Bad enough that he was registering late—it was already November and the term was half over. Here, he said. Drop me off here, and he hopped out of the car.

    By the time he got everything straightened out in the office, his first-period class had started. The teacher was in the middle of a lesson. Adam stood in front of the class while Mr. Handler interrogated him.

    Where are you from, Adam?

    No place, Adam said. He was trying to be accurate, but it came out sounding sullen.

    No place? I’ve never been to no place.

    I’m military, he explained.

    And where’s that? Pearl Harbor? Hickman Field? Or is it Fort Knox?

    America, Adam said, stiffly. The United States of America.

    He was sorry the minute he said it. It sounded so phony and superpatriotic, as if he were going to snap his heels together and salute the American flag standing in the corner of the room.

    Ah, America, Mr. Handler said. He fixed Adam with a disapproving eye. We are all Americans here, he instructed, "and though we, in Hawaii, are still only a territory of the United States, we are Americans, and

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