My Brother Sam is Dead is a novel by James Lincoln Collier about a boy named Timothy Meeker living during the American Revolutionary War. Timothy's father is a loyalist and his patriot brother is forced to leave home, eventually joining the Continental Army. After his father dies and the family begins to fall apart, Timothy witnesses many horrors of the war and his brother is eventually killed. The novel is a coming of age story focusing on themes of loyalty and bravery and the tension between family and ideology.
Dead Man Walking is a non-fiction book by Catholic nun Sister Helen Prejean. It takes its title from the traditional call of "Dead man walking, here," used to indicate the transport of a death row prisoner to the electric chair in the 1950s and before. The book recounts conditions on Death Row and is a call for an end to capital punishment. It looks at the lives of several prisoners within the system, exposing injustice, corruption, and brutality in American prisons.
Dead End in Norvelt is an autobiographical novel by Jack Gantos published in 2011. The novel follows Jack's life one summer while living in his hometown of Norvelt, Pennsylvania. After firing his father's sniper rifle, Jack is grounded, allowed to leave the house only to help Miss Volker write a newspaper column and obituaries. The novel follows the life of the town and a murder mystery that Jack and Volker unravel, promoting values of literacy, community and history.