Book Review Essay Sample: Sam Patch, The Famous Jumper by Paul E. Johnson

This paper provides a review of Sam Patchs book, The Famous Jumper by Paul E. Johnson and published by the Hill & Wang Publishers in the year 2003. Fundamentally, the book provides a depiction of many different attitudes towards Sam Patch. Ideally, it provides a display of the certain attitudes towards Sam Patch and his jumps. A closer look at the book shows that some people are amazed at his jumps and consequently carried along in his world. Other spoke fun at him regarding every single mishap by Sam to derail him from his practices. However, he seems not to pay much attention to these hateful comments but rises to become a prominent celebrity in the America through his major successful actions.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

The intended audience of the book, The Famous Jumper is meant for the general audience both in the United States and across the world. Ideally, the contents substantially illuminate the historical changes and development that occur in American society. As a background information of the book, Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper, the author Johnson offers a description of the Patch as the first modern celebrity and a member of the American generation to be brought within an industrial community. As a mill worker, Patch thrilled the crowd through his techniques of leaping from the waterfall tops. Successful jumps in New Jersey and Niagara Falls earn him tremendously games.

In the book, the author links together several themes, which makes up a major component of the book. The themes demonstrated in the book include the urbanization, the industrial revolution, and celebrity rise and merchandising. Other thematic issues that Paul Johnson puts across in the book include the ways of transforming attitudes towards the industrialization and urbanization, in addition to the intrinsic value of the America (Brezina 34).

Concerning the writing styles, Paul Johnson provides an explanation and illustration of the theme of rising to fame and becoming an American celebrity through a descriptive language. Ideally, this technique emerges as a strength of the book. He attempts to relate two different things and themes to offer a representation of the rising to become a celebrity in the midst of unfavourable forces from people who are not happy with ones achievements. Johnson shows that other rumours were about the manner in which Sam had fallen in love with a girl, but denied him (Johnson 74). He decided to jump not with the aim of becoming famous but to show the world that it is possible that anyone has the capability of succeeding to greatness. However, in the book, Sam offers an explanation regarding his continued jumping and that it was because of the excitement he gave the crowd through his stunts; a move that thrust him to the considerable position of fame. On a wider note, the Johnson takes a little dimension of a plot and consequently, creates an amazing story out of it. This is tremendously evocative to individuals who live near towns of Pawtucket, Paterson, and Rochester in New York (Johnson 121). The author does a considerable incorporation of the accounts of the towns growth around their waterfall.

A major weakness that emerges about the writing style that Johnson employs in this book is that he seems to lack an oversight regarding the physical details. A closer look at the book will depict that it is nearly impossible to reconstruct the actions of Patch, even when one decides to take a visit to Niagara today. Knowing details and composition of his jumps as Johnson contends is difficult.

Works Cited

Brezina, Corona. The Industrial Revolution in America: A Primary Source History of America's Transformation into an Industrial Society. New York: Rosen publications Group, 2005. Print.

Johnson, Paul E. Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003. Print.

Johnson, Paul E. Sam Patch, the Famous Jumper. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013. Internet resource.