1. Johnny Tremain
Esther Forbes

2. Childhood
Ester Forbes was born on June 23, 1891, in Westborough, Massachusetts. The youngest of five children, she spent her childhood surrounded by books and history. Her spacious home was filled with memorabilia and household goods from early America.

3. Childhood
As a young girl Esther enjoyed reading, and riding her pony thought the woods and pastures around nearly Worchester. Sometimes she stopped to collect a new turtle to add to he collection. At one time she had as mans as fifty shelled pets!

4. Education
Esther was educated at Bancroft School in Worcester, the Branford Academy in Brandford, and at the University of Wisconsin. While she was at the University, World War I was in progress. Many young men had left their farms to enlist as soldiers and a shortage of arm labor resulted. When students were called on to help, Esther joined in , becoming a hand on a arm near Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. Her duties included shucking corn, picking apples, and driving a team of horses.

5. Work History
When the war ended, she joined the editorial staff of Houghton Mifflin. Yet her love for the outdoors remained. She spend several of her vacation periods helping with the harvest near Harper’s Ferry.

6. Books
After six hears with Houghton Mifflin, Esther married and did some traveling abroad. Her career as a book author began in 1926 with the instant success of Oh Genteel Lady. More books followed, including Mirror for Witches, The General’s Lady, and Paul Revere and the World He lived In. While working on Paul Revere and the World He lived In, she became interested in the life of apprentices in 18th century Boston.

7. Apprenticeship
While doing research for the book, she learned that Paul Reveres’ father was an apprentice to a goldsmith who had fled France for a better life in America. Esther wrote: “Apprenticeship was something of a short-term form of slavery. There was no disgrace to it. It was the only way skilled trades (including medicine) were taught.”

8. Honors
Esther Forbes received the Pulitzer Prize for history in for Paul Revere and the World he Lived In. IN 1944, her novel, Johnny Tremain, won the Newbery Medal. Esther Forbes died in 1967, but her love for history was passed on. At her death she bequeathed the royalties; from her works to the American Antiquarian Society of Worcester, Massachusetts, the place where she had done most of the research for her books.

9. Book Trailer
Johnny Tremain