Reube Dare's Shad Boat: A Tale of the Tide Country

Roberts, Charles G. D., Sir, 1860-1943Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
112K words
Chapters
12

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Sea AdventureNature WritingComing of AgeSea StoryTidal Village

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Reube Dare's Shad Boat: A Tale of the Tide Country by Sir Charles G. D. RobertsAuthor: Roberts, Charles G. D., Sir, 1860-1943,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: May 30, 2015

Editor's review

This is a nautical novel for young readers by the Canadian author Charles G. D. Roberts, set in a tide-country fishing village and the nearby coastal waters and centered on the boy Reube Dare and his shad boat. Roberts was known for his nature writing, and the book's descriptions of tides, harbors, weather, and fishing-boat life carry a distinct regional flavor. The story follows the pace of traditional adventure narrative and emphasizes the boy's growth and sense of responsibility amid work at sea and sudden turns of events. It is suitable as an introductory read for understanding early North American nautical fiction for young readers, and also for readers who enjoy details of fishing boats, tides, and coastal life. As a public-domain English ebook, its language is on the whole not difficult, but fishing and nautical vocabulary is plentiful, so Chinese readers can use it as transitional material for reading English originals. There is no need to seek strong dramatic tension in the plot; it is better suited to savoring the atmosphere of coastal life and the adventure of a young person's perspective.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. First learn some basics about tides and shad boats, then read the main text; this makes it easier to enter the story's setting.
  2. With the English original, read a chapter first to grasp the plot, then go back over the nature descriptions and nautical details.
  3. Compare the coastal and fishing-boat scenes in the book with maps or photos of harbors to strengthen the sense of space.
  4. It suits segmented reading before sleep or on a commute; read one or two chapters at a time to maintain continuity.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12

FAQ

What age group is this book suitable for? It is a nautical adventure novel for young readers, with relatively traditional plot and language. Teenage readers can read it; adults who enjoy fishing-village life and coastal adventure are equally suited, but younger children are advised to have an adult's help with the nautical vocabulary.
Are there many nautical and fishing terms in the book? As a novel set around a shad boat and the tide country, it includes terms for fishing boats, tides, and harbors. They are not densely packed but do affect understanding of details, so it is advisable to have a dictionary ready or learn some basic fishing knowledge first.
The pacing is slow; is it worth finishing? Its value lies more in the atmosphere of coastal life, the nature writing, and the young person's perspective on growing up than in strong plot momentum. If you enjoy traditional adventure narrative and a maritime feel, it is worth reading slowly to the end; if you want fast pacing, try one or two chapters first and then decide.
This is a public-domain book; what should I note about editions? The book was released as an English ebook by Project Gutenberg and is a public-domain resource that readers can obtain free of charge. Page layout may differ slightly among electronic editions; focus on the main text rather than on the page numbers of any particular edition.

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About the author

Roberts, Charles G. D., Sir, 1860-1943 Author

Sir Charles G. D. Roberts (1860–1943) was a Canadian writer known for his animal stories and nature writing. The library holds twenty-nine of his works, including The Kindred of the Wild: A Book of Animal Life, Red Fox, Hoof and Claw, Neighbors Unknown, The Heart of the Ancient Wood, and Kings in Exile. His writing focuses largely on wild animals and life in the wilderness, blending close observation of nature with narrative tension; the animals he portrays are both wild and individual in character, and such works have had a certain influence within the English-language tradition of animal literature. Beyond fiction, he also wrote poetry, as shown by Songs of the Common Day, and, Ave!: An Ode for the Shelley Centenary, indicating that his writing spans both prose and verse. Public information on the details of his life is limited, and none is conjectured here.