City Boy: A Novel of 1903

By Matthew Siljander

Joe Strandos has a plan: do nothing, forever.

He's fourteen, he lives in Detroit, and he's perfectly happy avoiding anything that looks like work. His parents have a different idea. In the summer of 1903, they put him on a train to Colorado with a one-way ticket and a message for his Uncle Ed: keep him busy.

Uncle Ed's farm is everything Joe feared. Aunt Jan runs the house like a drill sergeant and isn't shy about letting Joe know what she thinks of him. The work starts before dawn and doesn't stop. The clothes don't fit, the food is awful, and the neighbor boy Sam is a bully who's two years older, fifty pounds heavier, and looking for a fight.

But somewhere between the horse races and the fistfights, the storms and the long days in the cornfields, something starts to change. Joe stops counting the days until he can leave. And when a letter finally arrives calling him back to Detroit, he's not sure he wants to go.

City Boy is a fast-paced historical adventure about a kid who gets sent away to learn a lesson, and comes back someone new.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GP2Z6RX1
• ISBN13: 9798248658886
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 132 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.5"