The Rifle

A treasured antique rifle gets into the wrong hands in this YA novel by the Newbury Award-winning author: "a truly mesmerizing tale, from beginning to end" (Publishers Weekly) .

In 1768, gunsmith Cornish McManus painstakingly crafted his masterpiece: a rifle of extraordinary beauty and accuracy. Though he knows he will never be able to replicate it, Cornish is forced to sell it to a man named John Byam, who carried it with pride into the Revolutionary War.

Passed down through generations, the beloved rifle ends up decorating the mantle of a modern-day mechanic and father named Harv. But what happens then is shocking, terrifying, and completely devastating.

Reader's guide included Read more Continue reading Read less REVIEW
"For readers willing to think about this issue . . . there is no better vehicle than this short, engagingly written story of one rifle and its fatal impact on one modern boy."--School Library Journal
--This text refers to the paperback edition. FROM THE PUBLISHER
"A truly mesmerizing tale, from beginning to end."
--Publishers Weekly, Starred "[An] engagingly written story of one rifle and its fatal impact on one modern boy."
--School Library Journal

"Paulsen's message is clear and cutting: a machine made for killing, no matter how lovingly crafted and benignly kept, remains a machine made for killing."
--BOOKLIST "Paulsen is at the peak of his powers in a book that is as shattering as the awful events it depicts. Unforgettable." --Kirkus Reviews, Pointer



--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. FROM THE INSIDE FLAP
In 1768, a gunsmith named Cornish McManus built a rifle of such accuracy that he know he could never create another like it. He intended to treasure his masterpiece, but with a new wife to provide for, he felt pressed to sell it. Soon the rifle was helping one John Byam become a legendary sharpshooter in the American Revolution. But when Byam succumbed to dysentery, the weapon was passed on to yet another owner...and then to another and another, until the present day.

Strangely, in all the time of the rifle after John Byam's death and through all the people who looked at it and held it to their shoulder, not once in the life of the rifle did anybody ever think to see if it was loaded.

The rifle was loaded. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GARY PAULSEN (1939 - 2021) wrote nearly two hundred books for young people, including the Newbery Honor Books Hatchet, Dogsong, and The Winter Room.

--This text refers to the paperback edition. FROM SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL
Grade 5 Up?This novella focuses on a specific weapon crafted during the Revolutionary War. At the book's conclusion, set in 1994, this rifle still functions and performs as it was designed to do. Paulsen, who can create vivid portraits of individuals in relation to specific places, takes the focus off the people here, although they remain distinct characters, and puts this object?a rifle?at the core of the story. Although he seems to be saying that people don't kill people, guns do, this message is not sustained. The circumstances seem so unique and the love of weaponry so strong that the anti-gun theme is fatally weakened. For anyone whose mind is made up on this issue, this book will probably not change it. However, it could lead to intense discussion and exploration of how our society has evolved into its present gun-loving culture and into the intense anguish and human cost we collectively ignore as we continue our love affair with weaponry. For readers willing to think about this issue, for those looking for ways to introduce the debate, there is no better vehicle than this short, engagingly written story of one rifle and its fatal impact on one modern boy.?Carol A. Edwards, Minneapolis Public Library
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. FROM BOOKLIST
Gr. 7^-9. In his latest novel, Paulsen explores the history of a flintlock rifle, meticulously describing the skill and artistry of gunsmith Cornish McManus as he spends months creating a gun both beautiful and "sweet" (meaning accurate) . Using his usual spare style, Paulsen describes the rifle's use in the Revolutionary War and follows its story into the twentieth century, when it is exchanged by a scathingly depicted gun fanatic for an Elvis-on-velvet painting, and ultimately ends up killing a teenager, Richard, in a freak accident that occurs without human intervention. The omniscient narrator, who speaks in an ironic tone reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut, details the events small and large (943 baseball games; finding a genetic cure for heart disease) that Richard missed by dying prematurely. Paulsen's message is clear and cutting: a machine made for killing, no matter how lovingly crafted and benignly kept, remains a machine made for killing. Susan Dove Lempke --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Read more Continue reading Read less