In My Brother Sam Is Dead, the first book created by Jim and Kit Collier, the complexity of issues about the Revolutionary War and war in general is explored in ways perhaps unique in children's literature. The story, set in Connecticut, shows a family torn between divided partisanship toward the war: the Loyalist dimension (Mr. Meeker's concern with maintaining his business and protecting his family) versus the Patriot dimension (young Sam Meeker's decision to join the rebel forces). Sam's younger brother, Tim, remains at home and is left with the ultimately unresolved conflict of torn personal loyalties. In the end both his father and brother are killed, providing the reader with biting ironies. His father is killed by the British when he attempts to deliver his cattle to the British troops; Sam is executed by his Patriot regiment after falsely being accused of stealing cattle that belonged to his family. In the end neither Tim nor the reader can make any clear-cut commitment to either side of the conflict. The theme of this book—sharply defined by the events of the story and useful as a "guide to contemporary behavior"—is explained by Kit Collier:

In a complex way it deals with why Americans did and did not become involved in the war. We wanted to show also that war unleashes forces that one does not know what the outcome may be. Hence, the usefulness of history to explain our present, for example, Lebanon and Viet Nam.

As a work conceived to present concepts related to the issues of war, My Brother Sam Is Dead portrays the Revolutionary War not as the good guys versus the bad guys, but rather as a civil war where families and communities were divided in public opinion. It was not an easy war to fight or to make decisions about. (p. 377)

Since at the time of the American Revolution all people living in America were British subjects, the war was not fought between the Americans and the British, but rather between groups of Americans whose loyalties were different. If the war is viewed as between the Patriots and the British government, then it was indeed a war of revolution. However, those who fought against each other were indeed Americans whose loyalties were split and, therefore, were the central characters in a civil war…. Any oversimplification of the issues involved denies historical realities and is, therefore, not useful to understanding contemporary events and issues.

In their second book, The Bloody Country, the Colliers have attempted to confront the reader with more complex issues. The family leaves their colonial home in Connecticut and moves to the frontier of the Susquehanna Valley in what is now Pennsylvania. The treachery and greed that the family encounters while trying to carve out a place to live are presented with a realism that may be found shocking. Kit Collier defends the book in this way:

In Bloody Country there is a deliberate effort to present bloodiness and gore in an effort to combat the deadened feeling about war and violence which is a result of television. We are attempting to combat the absence of feeling about violence and a skewed view of human life.

The relative balance between property values and the value of human lives is the pivotal conflict around which the story evolved. As such, it fairly portrays issues related to the American frontier at any time in our history and in any historical setting. This history of the dominant white culture in relation to minority ethnic groups—particularly black Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Mexican Americans—has, as its central theme, the conflict of these two values. While the presentation of this conflict in Bloody Country is scaled down in locale and historical events, the reader is forced to deal with the contradictions in greater depth in this story.

The historical moods of James and Christopher Collier are, then, more than just a good "read." They delve into our history with an eye for truth—truth that may result in contradiction and uncertainties. The stories are at the same time readable and challenging to our conception of the reality of human events and the need for faith in human values…. [The] combined talents [of the Colliers] offer young readers not only a story worth reading, but an opportunity, through their books, to deal with fundamental human issues in a way not possible in most literature. (pp. 377-78)