1. Johnny Tremain gives extensive detail about the life and work of silversmiths in eighteenth-century Boston. Research the apprenticeship system as it existed in America. Describe the activities of other colonial artisans, such as candlemakers, shipwrights, or coopers.

2. Although Johnny and his friends are fictional characters, the author includes the activities of many famous people and events in the story. How is Johnny Tremain really a novel about the anonymous heroes of the Revolution rather than about the famous statesmen?

3. Esther Forbes wrote her most famous books, Paul Revere and the World He Lived In and Johnny Tremain, in the 1940s, when World War II was being fought. The two books were inspired by the author's concern with the meaning and nature of human freedom.

What messages is the author trying to convey with the books? How could she have hoped...