The Fighting Ground

Written by Avi
Illustrated by Peter Catalanotto

Twenty-five years ago, 2003 Newbery Medal winner Avi wrote The Fighting Ground. The book was the recipient of the 1985 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. Now rewritten in serial form and fully illustrated for Breakfast Serials, The Fighting Ground, which takes place during a gripping twenty-four hour period, is a uniquely moving tale of a young boy's experience as a soldier during the American Revolution. The Horn Book had this to say of the story:

“During the American Revolution young Jonathan runs off from his New Jersey farm when the alarm bell sounds. Impetuously joining a handful of patriots and almost staggering under the weight of his flintlock musket, he follows a domineering corporal who has come summoning help. At first he is full of heroic dreams, but these are quickly replaced by fear and panic when the hated Hessians appear and a man next to him is killed. Frightened and alone, Jonathan escapes into unfamiliar woods, where he is eventually captured by three Hessian soldiers. Unable to communicate with them in German, he is yet bound to them in terms of their mutual needs. That he is responsible for their deaths at the end of the book is a moving example of the brutality of war. Jonathan discovers that he is both hero and coward; he also finds that the bullying corporal is capable of sympathy and that the much-feared Hessians are but ordinary men. In an insignificant but violent moment of war, Avi skillfully captures Jonathan’s physical and emotional experiences and convincingly portrays his passage from naïve boy to young man.”

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