Harry Mazer's A Boy at War, published in 2001, recounts the experiences of fourteen-year-old Adam Pelko. Adam is a young man from a military family who lives in Hawaii in the days leading up to and during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
It is just a matter of chance that Adam and two friends are fishing in a rowboat on the harbor on that fateful morning when the attack occurs. At first, the boys assume that they have been caught in a drill, but quickly realize that the planes and bombs are real. In the confusion following the initial onslaught, Adam helplessly witnesses the sinking of the Arizona, the ship on which his father is stationed.
A Boy at War's target audience is the middle school reader. Although the book is short (just around
It is just a matter of chance that Adam and two friends are fishing in a rowboat on the harbor on that fateful morning when the attack occurs. At first, the boys assume that they have been caught in a drill, but quickly realize that the planes and bombs are real. In the confusion following the initial onslaught, Adam helplessly witnesses the sinking of the Arizona, the ship on which his father is stationed.
A Boy at War's target audience is the middle school reader. Although the book is short (just around