THE ROAD TO BUNKER HILL

This combines in fictional form the climate of opinion, the mood and the events- locally- that built up to the Battle of Bunker (or more accurately Breed's) Hill as recounted so vividly in Fleming's Now We Are Enemies. Together the two books supplement each other admirably- and Shirley Barker's novel needs this to give it depth and to offset what seems a kind of immaturity of approach. The story line concerns itself with two girls who- at the tale's opening- are in Newburyport, just as news of Concord and Lexington sparks rumors that the British are on the march. The panic escape of the populace and the sheepish return, the departure of men and boys to join the ragged ""army"", and the two girls running away from their grandmother to be nearer events in Cambridge, only to be followed by the grandmother, who takes on the running of the tavern, deserted by the menfolk who ran it -- this is the skeleton on which the story is built. There should be a good market for this among young adults. For more discriminating mature readers, it is somewhat slight of substance, though the particular angle is a fresh one.