Thirteen-year-old Samuel is a courier du bois, or woods runner, a wilderness expert who provides meat for his entire settlement in the British colony of Pennsylvania. When he returns from hunting one day to find all of the cabins in his settlement burned to the ground and everyone slaughtered or missing, he must rely on those skills and the help of good folk along the way to the British garrison in New York to find his parents. Not a war novel of “patriotism, all clean, pristine, antiseptic,” as Paulsen explains in his afterword, this is a vivid and graphic tale of one boy caught up in a harsh war, a side of the American Revolution not often told. The author structures the narrative in an unusual fashion, alternating fictional scenes with nonfiction information related to the story line—brief segments on spy networks, weaponry, war orphans, Hessians and floating prisons. Though no sources are provided for the nonfiction elements, the effective pairing of fiction and nonfiction makes this a superb reflection on the nature of war. A good match for the author’s Soldier’s Heart (1998). (Historical fiction. 11 & up)
