A Boy Against the Boxers

It is the summer of 1900, and fourteen-year-old Eddie Donahue lives in the International Legation Quarter in Peking, China, where his father trades silk for the American Oriental Trading Company. Eddie runs errands through the wild markets, watches Marines march past in their dusty campaign hats, and tries to keep two basset hounds named Boone and Crockett out of trouble. Life is strange and far from home, but Eddie loves every minute of it. Then the Boxer Rebellion reaches Peking. The Empress Dowager withdraws her protection. Boxer militants and Imperial soldiers surround the Legation Quarter, and for the next fifty-five days, a few hundred soldiers and the trapped civilians will fight to survive. Eddie does not sit on the sidelines. He rescues a wounded Marine sergeant from a Peking back alley. He crawls through a sewage moat under fire to reach help. He scavenges silk and herbs to supply a field hospital. He finds a forgotten cannon in a junk shop and hands it to a Navy gunner who names it Betsey. And when a massive mine explosion buries his father, Boone and Crockett dig him out of the rubble, earning themselves a battlefield promotion to Second Lieutenant. Based on the real Siege of the International Legations, A Boy Against the Boxers weaves fiction through documented history. The real people who appear in these pages, including the future First Lady Lou Hoover, Marine Captain John Myers, Colonel Shiba of Japan, and Gunner Mitchell, did the remarkable things described. Eddie Donahue is the invention. Everything around him happened. For readers ages 8 to 14 who love fast-paced adventure, military history, and stories about young people who find courage when it matters most.