The American Victory is the twelfth in a series of children's books called "American Adventure." It tells the story of a family whose ancestors settled in Plymouth Colony on the Massachusetts Bay in the seventeenth century, and it focuses on the period of the transition from the thirteen British Colonies in North America to the birth of the United States in the revolutionary period of the late eighteenth century.

The story is told from the perspective of the young protagonist, Paul Lankford, who was a toddler when his father, a printer by trade, left to fight in the Revolutionary War. When the father returns home in 1781, Paul is now eight, and he and his father have to adjust to the new reality of paternal supervision. Paul's father is strict and wants Paul to follow him in the printer's trade, but Paul would rather be a shipbuilder, like his uncle. Over the years, they begin to adjust to each other, and Paul develops the courage to tell his father that he will chart his own destiny.

Much of the American history in the book comes from when Paul reads his father's journal, which helps him learn about setbacks, hardships, and victories of the Revolutionary War, whose successful outcome after a doubtful start made possible the establishment of a new country: the United States of America.