Heroes Don't Run: A Novel of the Pacific War

Overview

"I WANTED TO SERVE, TO BE PART OF THIS THING MY FATHER HAD GIVEN HIS LIFE FOR. I DIDN'T WANT THE WAR TO END, AND ALL I'D BE ABLE TO SAY WAS, NO I DIDN'T 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 mother's 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 Adam's journey as he navigates brutal circumstances that no boy should know.

Editorial Reviews

PW starred A Boy at War: A Novel of Pearl Harbor, saying, "Mazer successfully fuses a strong portrayal of Adam's transformation with both a vivid account of the attack and subtle suggestions of the complexities of Japanese-American relations as played out in particular lives." Harry Mazer continued Adam Pelko's story in A Boy No More, and now concludes with Heroes Don't Run: A Novel of the Pacific War, in which Adam, now 17, enlists in the Marines in 1944 to face combat on Okinawa. (Aug.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Author Information

Bio of Harry Mazer

Harry Mazer's The Last Mission is drawn closely from his experiences as a seventeen-year-old in the Army Air Corps. Like Jack, he was a Jewish boy from the Bronx full of fantasies about heroism, and like Jack, he became a waist gunner and never fired his guns. He remembers, "I was scared every time we flew....On our 26th mission we flew over Pilzen, Czechoslovakia, to bomb the Skoda Munitions Works. We missed our target, turned over the target again, and were hit. I saw Mike, who was our radio operator, frozen in the door of the radio room. He never made it out of the plane. Only three of us parachuted....No one in the plane lived." ( ALAN Review, Fall 1980) Harry Mazer is the editor of Twelve Shots: Outstanding Short Stories About Guns, where twelve authors explore the extreme emotions that guns provoke in all of us. Walter Dean Myers, Rita Williams-Garcia, Richard Peck and other well-known authors create a riveting collection of short fiction that explores the emotion-driven world of guns.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Aladdin

Filesize

559.65 KB

Number of Pages

113

eBook ISBN

9781442407039

Awards

• Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award