Juvenile Fiction Books

A Short Summary, With Some Explanations of Concepts Presented byHughes, but Not Well Defined by Him, Being Apparently WellUnderstood in His Day, but With Which Modern Readers May beUnfamiliar. This is the sequel to Hughes' more successful novel Tom Brown's School Days, which told about Tom at the Rugby School from the age of 11 to 16. Now Tom is at Oxford University for a three year program... more...

It was a beautiful morning, in the month of July, when a crowd of boys assembled on the wharf of Grand Pre. The tide was high, the turbid waters of Mud Creek flowed around, a fresh breeze blew, and if any craft was going to sea she could not have found a better time. The crowd consisted chiefly of boys, though a few men were mingled with them. These boys were from Grand Pre School, and are all old... more...

"Do you know, Nell," said Stas Tarkowski to his friend, a littleEnglish girl, "that yesterday the police came and arrested the wife ofSmain, the overseer, and her three children,—that Fatma who severaltimes called at the office to see your father and mine." And little Nell, resembling a beautiful picture, raised her greenish eyes to Stas and asked with mingled surprise and fright:... more...

CHAPTER I "Kicker" Drayne Revolts "I'm going to play quarter-back," declared Drayne stolidly. "You?" demanded Captain Dick Prescott, looking at the aspirant in stolid wonder. "Of course," retorted Drayne. "It's the one position I'm best fitted for of all on the team." "Do you mean that you're better fitted for that post than anyone else on... more...

My First Football Match. It was a proud moment in my existence when Wright, captain of our football club, came up to me in school one Friday and said, “Adams, your name is down to play in the match against Craven to-morrow.” I could have knighted him on the spot. To be one of the picked “fifteen,” whose glory it was to fight the battles of their school in the Great Close, had been the leading... more...

IN A LONELY CABIN On the edge of a prairie, in western Iowa, thirty years ago, stood a cabin, covering quite a little ground, but only one story high. It was humble enough, but not more so than the early homes of some who have become great. The furniture was limited to articles of prime necessity. There was a stove, a table, three chairs, a row of shelves containing a few articles of crockery and... more...

SOMEWHAT CONTAGIOUS It is October and the mountains are waking from their short winter sleep. It is October, the month of the moving mists. Come and let us take a walk, not down Fleet Street with Dr. Johnson, but up a mountain side with Nature,—nay, with God Himself. There is nothing to see, absolutely nothing at all. You know that there are trees on either hand of you, and that the undergrowth is... more...

THE LAST EVENING AT HOME "Now, then, everyone join in the chorus," commanded Hippy Wingate. There was an answering tinkle from Reddy's mandolin, the deeper notes of a guitar sounded, then eight care-free young voices were raised in the plaintive chorus of "My Old Kentucky Home." It was a warm night in September. Miriam Nesbit and seven of the Eight Originals were spending a last... more...

CHAPTER I. DIDDIE, DUMPS, AND TOT.   They were three little sisters, daughters of a Southern planter, and they lived in a big white house on a cotton plantation in Mississippi. The house stood in a grove of cedars and live-oaks, and on one side was a flower-garden, with two summer-houses covered with climbing roses and honeysuckles, where the little girls would often have tea-parties in the pleasant... more...

CHAPTER I. THE ESCAPE. The summer sun blazed down scorchingly on the white road, on the wide stretch of moorland in the distance, and on the little coppice which grew not far from the road. The only shady spot for miles, it seemed, was that one under the trees in the little coppice, where the caravan stood; but even there the heat was stifling, and the smell of hot blistering varnish mingled with the... more...