The Captain's Boy


Book Description

With his family murdered and his home burned and pillaged, fourteen-year-old Isaiah is plunged into the dangerous world of the American Revolution. on the side of the rebels. Now a part of a cause bigger than himself, Isaiah gradually discovers what it means to be a man.




From Cabin 'Boys' to Captains


Book Description

Traditionally, a woman’s place was never on stormy seas. But actually thousands of dancers, purserettes, doctors, stewardesses, captains and conductresses have taken to the waves on everything from floating palaces to battered windjammers. Their daring story is barely known, even by today’s seawomen.From before the 1750s, women fancying an oceangoing life had either to disguise themselves as cabin ‘boys’ or acquire a co-operative husband with a ship attached. Early pioneers faced superstition and discrimination in the briny ‘monasteries’. Today women captain cruise ships as big as towns and work at the highest level in the global maritime industry.This comprehensive exploration looks at the Merchant Navy, comparing it to the Royal Navy in which Wrens only began sailing in 1991. Using interviews and sources never before published, Jo Stanley vividly reveals the incredible journey across time taken by these brave and lively women salts.




The Captains


Book Description

A young boy’s adventure of serving on a merchant ship in the mid 1600’s begins only by chance when he must leave London at 12 years old and move to his grandfather’s house near the sea. These changes open an entirely new life for him where there is world travel, excitement, and a pathway to success. The adventures take him to lands he had barely begun to study in school yet once exposed he knew very soon that this would be the life for him. An amazing life where an opportunity presented itself and even at 12 years of age, he recognized it as something exciting, new, yet challenging, lonely at times, and frightening at times yet he able transcend his fears and excel. His will to perform every job to the best of his ability along with his insatiable thirst for learning allows him recognition at the highest level. This quest provides for further opportunity as it leads to a serendipitous meeting that changes his life even more. This book and its stories were created through my dreams where the question that begs for an answer “what would I have been if I lived in 1650”? With multiple dreams spawning this story, the next question to be answered is “Are these dreams just a collection of stories I have read or seen or if this of my actual past?”. Regardless of the answer, the adventures were all that a growing boy could dream about living in places he had never been in a time he had never known.




From Cabin 'boys' to Captains


Book Description

This lively yet scholarly book reveals an unsuspected history of women at sea, from women pirates and daring cabin "boys" under sail to today's rear-admirals and weapons experts on nuclear submarines. Historically, women wanting to sail in their own right faced many challenges. They were rejected as nuisances and outsiders, trespassing into the male maritime tribe. Today they command cruise ships and are becoming commodores. This comprehensive work looks at both the merchant and royal navies, explaining women's progression from outsider to master"--with male shipmates as obstacles and helping hands. Using interviews and sources never before published, Jo Stanley vividly reveals the incredible journey across time taken by women at sea.




Captains of the Sands


Book Description

A Brazilian Lord of the Flies, about a group of boys who live by their wits and daring in the slums of Bahia A Penguin Classics They call themselves “Captains of the Sands,” a gang of orphans and runaways who live by their wits and daring in the torrid slums and sleazy back alleys of Bahia. Led by fifteen-year-old “Bullet,” the band—including a crafty liar named “Legless,” the intellectual “Professor,” and the sexually precocious “Cat”—pulls off heists and escapades against the right and privileged of Brazil. But when a public outcry demands the capture of the “little criminals,” the fate of these children becomes a poignant, intensely moving drama of love and freedom in a shackled land. Captains of the Sands captures the rich culture, vivid emotions, and wild landscape of Bahia with penetrating authenticity and brilliantly displays the genius of Brazil’s most acclaimed author. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.




The Captains and the Kings


Book Description

Winner of the Author’s Club First Novel Award: Alone with melancholic memories of his past, a widower finds new life after striking up a friendship with a village boy In County Wicklow, south of Dublin, Mr. Prendergast lives alone in the Big House of his village. A remnant of the long-gone days of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy, Prendergast’s mansion has been witness to many of the most important years of his life, including his childhood, marked by his mother’s open preference for his older brother, Alexander. Following Alexander’s death in the First World War, Prendergast traveled the world, returning home decades later to a greatly changed place. Now in the 1970s, his wife and daughter are both gone, leaving the house an empty monument to his isolation and melancholy. But when the young, redheaded Diarmid arrives on Prendergast’s doorstep, the boy’s thrill at the house’s history sparks an unlikely friendship—one that revives in Prendergast a sense of vitality and sets in motion a final, fateful confrontation with the outside world he’d shunned for so many years.




Captains of Harley


Book Description

Captains of Harley: A School Story by Hylton Cleaver is an early 20th century book that was almost lost to time. Through the efforts of literary conservationists, however, the story has been salvaged. Readers from all backgrounds will find themselves falling in love with this story that will keep them entertained until the last word.




The Boy's Own Annual


Book Description




Every Boy's Book: A Complete Encyclopædia of Sports and Amusements


Book Description

"Every Boy's Book" is a complete encyclopedia of amusements and sports activities for modern boys. Excerpt: "HOP, STEP AND JUMP. Make a mark on the ground at a place called the "starting point." At ten yards' distance from this make another, called the "spring." Then let the players arrange themselves at the starting point, and in succession run to the second mark called the spring. From the spring make first a hop on one leg, from this make a long step, and from this step a long jump. Those who go over the greatest space of ground are of course the victors."




The Ball Park Boys


Book Description

Excerpt from Making Money He then gave Tommy a hard pull on both of his ears causing him to cry out and fall to the ground. Gary lunged towards the nasty smelly man, but I moved quicker and jumped in front of him. I knew as quick as the razor sharp knife had disappeared into his pocket it could reappear. The Ball Park Boys always stuck together and would defend each other, but this wasn't a fight they could win today. "I'm giving you ten traps and if you want to make some money, catch me some muskrats. Don't screw up their hides and you better not loose any of my traps, you little punks got that?" the nasty smelly man said as he glared at us with those beady mean looking eyes. Gary and Tommy both had a look on their face that I had not seen before. The look wasn't one when we had been behind in a baseball or football game and the other team would taunt us, or call us names. This look was different. This look was one of anger and bitterness. I knew one day I may not be able to stop them should we encounter the nasty smelly man and he started messing with Tommy again. Excerpt from The Best Boat Ever We are now going faster and backwards down the rapids. In unison Tommy and Jerald who had not said a word since we launched, began screaming at the tops of their lungs. They knew the end was near. They wouldn't even get to see what large tree or rock that we would crash in to would send them flying out backwards and then watch as our new death wagon slowly Fall on top them, pushing them to their watery graves. These thoughts made them scream even louder. I still had a death grip on my pole and was keeping it under water as we raced backwards. Suddenly it stuck in the mud and sand on the bottom knocking me forward into the backs Of Jerald and Tommy. This made them only scream louder, as they knew the end was near. I never let go of the grip on my pole and as I regained my balance our boat miraculously stopped and very slowly the front began to turn back into the middle of the river. The river had now widened and was much deeper and yes calm. After our boat spun around straight I pulled my pole out of the hole it was stuck in and gave up a slight push. The water had become quiet and was moving slowly. We had just survived death. Our boat was still floating although it had a couple inches of water in the middle. Gary, Tommy and Jerald all turned to look at me. They gazed at me with a strange look. Excerpt from Baseball It didn't matter that blood was coming from our sliding arms and hands. We had played on much rougher infields before. We executed our much practiced method of pop-up sliding when stealing a base. We would never turn to look for a ball, or in this situation people coming after us. It didn't matter, we were on our feet racing down the long driveway. Our feet were barely touching the ground and when we reached the railroad tracks we only went faster. We were racing towards home, towards safety. We were not going to stop until we were at the Ball Park, or home base. That was all that mattered now. We would be safe there, we would be home.