Student Summaries Page Five

In the novel, “My Brother Sam is Dead” I believe the authors James Lincoln Collier & Christopher Collier were trying to reveal the horrors of war. At the beginning of the book the narrator, Tim Meeker a boy from small town Redding, Connecticut thinks the war is never going to change his life, he is wrong. His brother enlists in the Continental Army ready to combat the redcoats. A year after his father is captured and put on a prison ship where he dies from an epidemic. And finally two years later the Army Sam served faithfully and dutifully executes him.
My favorite part of the book is when Tim tricks the cowboys so they don’t rob his caravan. It was very suspenseful to see if Tim would be able to get the supplies home or just lose them. It was also lucky that he and Sam are both good speakers or the cowboys might not have been convinced by his story. Tim also had to worry that he might be captured by the cowboys and thrown in jail or worse executed. Overall I really enjoyed the entire book.
There were a lot of great posts made by the students of St. Aloysius School. One poster that made quite a few of them is Daniella. Most of her posts are very descriptive and use many supporting details from the story. Also they are long enough to get the point across but not overly long. I hope that we at Bay Head School will have another project with the students of St. Aloysius School.

danielFeb 26, 2009 7:23 PM

Daniel

1. I think that the author's message is that war is a horrible thing. War is never fair no matter what your
actions are, or what side you are on everyone loses, they lose many needs, families, and most important
they lose peace in the world. I also think that another message was to learn what life was back then,
and how war was.
2. I liked a lot of things about this novel. One of the main things is just that I like the story line
I also thing, in my opinion, the novel was describtive. My favorite part in the book were the chapters
when Sam and Mr.Meeker traveled to verplanks point. It was very suspensful and exciting. You could
never know when something would attack them or if something would go wrong.
danielFeb 26, 2009 7:29 PM

Daniel

3. I related to James because I thought we had simaliar ideas about "My Brother Sam is Dead".

austinFeb 27, 2009 8:54 PM

1. I think the message is that war is never fair. An example of this is that Mr. Meeker and Sam both die. So, Tim and Mrs.Meeker are left with alone. So, war is not fair because no matter what side you fight on, there are always losses. I believe we have to fight for what we believe in but we should do it in a nonviolent way.

2. I liked many things about this book. I liked that it showed what war is really like. It enforced the harshness of war. It showed that you could lose more than the battle, you could lose a family member or friend. I think this was a good book to read. I found it it enjoyable and looked forward to see what was going to happen next. I think it is a very good book and I learned alot.

3. I agree mainly with James. I related to him becuase he had alot of the same views that I had throughout the story.
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