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

I must have been walking around the Curriculum Lab with a deer in the headlight look on my face because two of the librarians stopped me and asked if I needed help. The genre of historical fiction has always been interesting to me. However, what I believed was historical fiction is not actually what it is today.

I was always under the impression that historical fiction was any book that took place in the past. However that is not true. I will not go into details because I do not want to ruin the genre presentation for next week.

Heroes Don't Run is a coming of age book designed for upper elementary grade students. Adam is adamant about joining the military to avenge the death of his father at Pearl Harbor. What he was not expecting was the amount of resistance and hard work he would encounter before he could fulfill that mission. Harry Mazer does and amazing job of bringing you into the pain that Adam was facing in the lose of his father. Mazer also brings in several historical elements (Japanese internment camps, Pearl Harbor survivors, Okinawan fight scenes) that transport the reader into Adam's world.

I believe though that it was the cover art that draws people in. One can see the pain in Adam's face, but yet also see the boy that has gone off to war, as so many young men were forced to do with this war. Having read the last book in a three book series only wants me to read the full story of Adam.