The Year is 1773; the scene is Boston. Johnny Tremain is fourteen and apprenticed to a silversmith. He is gifted and knows it. He lords his skills over the other apprentices until the tragic day when a crucible of molten silver breaks and Johnny's right hand is burned so badly it's useless. After a period of despair and humiliation, Johnny becomes a dispatch rider for the Committee of Public Safety, a job that brings him in touch with Otis, Hancock, John and Samuel Adams, and other Boston patriots, and with all the exciting currents and undercurrents that were to lead to the Tea Party and the Battle of Lexington. To read Johnny Tremainis to live through two dramatic years of our country's history, and to see these events from a new angle--the shrewd eyes of an observant boy.