Harry Mazer

In these three finely crafted novellas that chart the emotional ties that bind man and mans best friend together, a brilliant dog changes places with his basketball playing master, a young man falls in love with a dog trainer, and a newspaper delivery boy tries desperately to find an appropriate final resting place for one of his customers beloved pets.

A soldier returns home from Iraq forever changed in this poignant and pivotal novel from award-winning authorsone a veteran.Ben lives a charmed lifeeffortlessly landing the lead in the high school musical, dating the prettiest girl in school. When he decides to enlist in the army, no one thinks hell be in real danger. But his decision has devastating consequences: His convoy gets caught in an explosion, and Ben ends up in a coma for two months. When he wakes up, he doesnt know where he isor remember anything about his old life. His family and friends mourn what they see as a loss, but Ben perseveres. And as he triumphs, readers will relate to this timely novel that pairs the action and adventure of the best war stories with the emotional elements of struggle and transformation.As an underage soldier in WWII, Henry Mazer has firsthand experience of what it means to be a young man in the military.

"Can I go home now?" After his bike gets stolen, twelve-year-old Sammy gets lost in the woods near his home. He stumbles upon the makeshift hideaway of the "wild kid" named Kevin, who has run away from reform school. Will this strongly independent tough let Sammy get home to his family? Can they both survive in the unforgiving wilderness?

Virtually nothing is known about Sarah Lincoln, Abraham Lincolns older sister. This novel follows the few known facts of the Lincoln familys early life, starting with the Lincolns move from Kentucky to Indiana when Sarah was nine through their years living in a log cabin, the death of Sarah and Abes mother when Sarah was eleven and Sarahs new responsibilities as woman of the cabin, culminate with the arrival of a stepmother a year later. The details of Sarahs character have been invented, but this novel provides real insight into Abraham Lincolns childhood, as well as the role of women on the frontier.

"I WANTED TO SERVE, TO BE PART OF THIS THING MY FATHER HAD GIVEN HIS LIFE FOR. I DIDNT WANT THE WAR TO END, AND ALL ID BE ABLE TO SAY WAS, NO I DIDNT SERVE, I WAS RIGHT HERE THE WHOLE WAR, SAFE IN BAKERSFIELD." Adam Pelko witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that killed his father, a lieutenant on the USS Arizona. Even though Adam is underage, he defies his mothers wishes and enlists in the Marines. Sent first to boot camp, then to Okinawa, he experiences the stark reality of war firsthand -- the camaraderie and the glory as well as the grueling regimen, the paralyzing fear, and death. And at every turn, Adam must confront memories of his father. In the concluding volume of his World War II trilogy, Harry Mazer masterfully illustrates Adams journey as he navigates brutal circumstances that no boy should know.

They rowed hard, away from the battleships and the bombs. Water sprayed over them. The rowboat pitched one way and then the other. Then, before his eyes, the Arizona lifted up out of the water. That enormous battleship bounced up in the air like a rubber ball and split apart. Fire burst out of the ship. A geyser of water shot into the air and came crashing down. Adam was almost thrown out of the rowboat. He clung to the seat as it swung around. He saw blue skies and the glittering city. The boat swung back again, and he saw black clouds, and the Arizona, his fathers ship, sinking beneath the water.-- from A Boy at War"He kept looking up, afraid the planes would come back. The sky was obscured by black smoke....It was all unreal: the battleships half sunk, the bullet holes in the boat, Davi and Martin in the water."December 7, 1941:On a quiet Sunday morning, while Adam and his friends are fishing near Honolulu, a surprise attack by Japanese bombers destroys the fleet at Pearl Harbor.Even as Adam struggles to survive the sudden chaos all around him, and as his friends endure the brunt of the attack, a greater concern hangs over his head: Adams father, a navy lieutenant, was stationed on the USS Arizona when the bombs fell. During the subsequent days Adam -- not yet a man, but no longer a boy -- is caught up in the war as he desperately tries to make sense of what happened to his friends and to find news of his father.Harry Mazer, whose autobiographical novel, The Last Mission, brought the European side of World War II to vivid life, now turns to the Pacific theater and how the impact of war can alter young lives forever.

Adam por fin ha encontrado dos buenos amigos en Hawai: Davi, un compañero de clase japonés, y Martin, un hawaiano grandullón. El ataque de los japoneses a la Marina americana los sorprende pescando cerca de la base, desde donde Adam presenciara el bombardeo del Arizona, el buque de su padre.

At fifteen, Tony Laporte is what many people would call a throughly spoiled kid. He gets away with a lot because his parents want him to have all the things they never had. But when they surprise him by refusing to let him keep a stray dog he has found, Tony decides to teach them a lesson by running off in his mothers old Plymouth. Driving without a license in the middle of a severe snowstorm, he picks up a hitchhiker named Cindy Reichert, an aloof girl who has always had difficulty forming friendships. To impress Cindy, Tony tries to show off his driving skills and ends up wrecking the car in a very desolated area far from the main highway. After spending precious days bickering with each other and waiting for rescue that never comes, they finally realize that their lives are at stake and they must cooperate to survive. The question is--can they survive?

In 1944, as World War II is raging across Europe, fifteen-year-old Jack Raab dreams of being a hero. Leaving New York City, his family, and his boyhood behind, Jack uses a false I.D. and lies his way into the U.S. Air Force.From their base in England, he and his crew fly twenty-four treacherous bombing missions over occupied Europe. The war is almost over and Hitler near defeat when they fly their last mission -- a mission destined for disaster. Shot down far behind enemy lines, Jack is taken prisoner and sent to a German POW camp, where his experiences are more terrifying than anything hed ever imagined.