Although Shays' Rebellion might seem to be an unpromising subject for a historical novel for young readers, the authors of My Brother Sam Is Dead … have courageously but not always successfully made the most of it [in The Winter Hero]. Seen from the point of view of Justin Conkey, who was fourteen at the time, the events of the story transcend the urgent question of taxation in America and emphasize the boy's desire to prove himself a hero…. The language is plain and full of understatement; the events and the unusual situations historically verifiable; but the last two-thirds of the novel gives the impression of a briefly developed chronicle and fails to sustain the dramatic interest, the suspense, and the vivid characterization of the opening. (pp. 67-8)

Paul Heins, in a review of "The Winter Hero," in The Horn Book Magazine, Vol. LV, No. 1, February, 1979, pp. 67-8.