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My Important Thoughts About The Book:
 The Hero of Ticonderoga was originally going to be
a historical novel about Ethan Allen. I had written a paper on Ethan's book, The
Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity, while I was in college. While
researching another college paper on folklore, I read some of the folk tales that had
grown up around him. (The story about the snake that became drunk after biting him
is a good example.) I was so certain that Ethan would be a good subject for a book
that I kept the note cards I made while writing my paper about him. I still have
them, though I don't know where. Anyway, I gave up my plan for the historical novel
before I'd written more than a few pages of the first draft, but there was never any doubt
that this book would involve Ethan Allen in some way.
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The Critics' Important Thoughts About The
Book:
 | Kirkus Reviews: "With her usual wry humor and clear-eyed look at
the world of children on the brink of adolescence, Gauthier introduces a delightful,
iconoclastic heroine...As Therese delivers one oral report after another (Mr. Santangelo
keeps reassigning the task until she gets it right) we get a look at Allen as an
outrageous hero: irreverent, intelligent, hard-drinking, rarely missing an
opportunity to make enemies, and possessed of an admirable and reckless courage. In
the smaller milieu of her school and her town (and except for the drinking), Therese is
much like her subject...we are left, in this satisfying read, with a rich impression of a
likable protagonist..."
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| Publishers Weekly: "Like Ethan Allen, the subject of her
oral school report, the narrator of Gauthier's amusing and affecting novel, set in 1966
Vermont, is sassy, shrewd and outspoken. Tessy's voice crackles with razor-sharp
insight and comedic one-liners from the very start...Gauthier sustains her tale's rapid
pace and surefire humor throughout, while delivering a history lesson that reader's will
absorb effortlessly."
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| The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books:
"Background issues of sixth-grade squabbles, jealousies, and busted friendships are
right on the mark, and it's thoroughly refreshing to find a protagonist who is a perfectly
average student with parents who love her just the way she is."
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Other Stuff:
| Named a Notable Book for 2002 by the American Library Association.
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| A Recommended Book on the TeacherSource page of the PBS Website.
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| Chosen as one of the New York Public Library's Children's Books 2001 - 100 Titles for
Reading and Sharing List.
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| Listed in the 2001 Capitol Choices, Noteworthy Books for Children.
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| On the Recommended Book List for Hawaii's 2003 Nene Award.
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| Nominated for the 2003-2004 Prairie Pasque Award.
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The Hero of Ticonderoga Presentation:
You can watch my presentation, The Hero
of Ticonderoga, on Ethan Allen. It was given at the Ethan Allen Homestead in Burlington,
Vermont on June 15, 2014.
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Virtual Field Trip:
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Click the button to join Thérèse
and her classmates on their field trip to Fort Ticonderoga.
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