The Boy Scouts Down in Dixie or, The Strange Secret of Alligator Swamp

Herbert CarterProject Gutenberg · United StatesMar 2023

Rating 2.3
Word count
325K words
Chapters
33

Tags

Motivation and Growth Suspense ThrillerSwamp SettingFriendship GrowthMystery SolvingTaking ActionBook SeriesExotic CultureAmerican SouthBoyhood AdventureYouth Reading

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.

The Boy Scouts Down in Dixie; or, The Strange Secret of Alligator Swamp by Carter

Author: Carter, Herbert, active 1909-1917,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Feb 13, 2015

Editor's review

This is a typical boys' adventure novel, built around a mystery the Boy Scouts encounter in the Southern swamps. The plot is tightly paced with clearly planted suspense, bearing the distinct style of early twentieth-century juvenile fiction. Centered on teamwork, courage, and exploration, the story moves forward through swamp adventure and the unraveling of a secret, making it well suited to building reading interest and a sense of adventure. The language is relatively plain, the pace brisk, and the chapters short, which makes for easy reading in installments. As a public-domain ebook, it also offers a sample for studying early boys' literature as a genre. It is best read in the context of early twentieth-century American juvenile fiction, with attention to the period markers and turns of expression. Overall it works well as light reading or as supplementary material for young readers' English practice.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read chapter by chapter and review the suspense clues at the end of each chapter to keep the reading rhythm.
  2. Note how the Boy Scouts divide roles and cooperate; this can serve as discussion material.
  3. English learners can read for plot first, then revisit unfamiliar words and period expressions to build vocabulary.
  4. Read alongside other early boys' adventure novels to observe similarities and differences in genre conventions.

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
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33

FAQ

What age group is this book suitable for? As an early boys' adventure novel, it centers on exploration and puzzle-solving and is suitable for young readers and those with basic English reading ability. Younger children may read it with a parent or use a simplified edition, while adult readers can browse it as a sample of genre fiction.
Does the story contain violence or unsettling content? This is an early twentieth-century juvenile adventure book, focused mainly on exploration and teamwork, and its thrilling moments mostly stay at the level of suspense. It may, however, carry the expressive habits and assumptions of its era, which readers can understand in historical context.
Is the English difficult? The language is generally plain, the chapters short, and the plot strongly driven, making it suitable for intermediate English learners to try. The book does contain early English expressions and period usage, and some words differ from modern usage, so reading with a dictionary or annotations is recommended.
Is this part of a series? Does it need to be read in order? This is one volume in a series of Boy Scouts adventure stories and can usually be read independently, without strict series order. To follow the characters' relationships further, readers can pick up other books in the series in publication order.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Herbert Carter Author · American

Herbert Carter was an American author whose dates and biographical details are unknown, and public information about him is very limited. According to reliable sources, this name was a pseudonym used by the prolific writer St. George Henry Rathborne, chiefly for the "Boy Scouts" series published by A. L. Burt between 1913 and 1917. Twelve of his works are held in this collection, including The Boy Scouts in the Rockies, The Boy Scouts in the Blue Ridge, and The Boy Scouts at the Battle of Saratoga. These novels follow the young members of the Silver Fox Patrol through camping, tracking, and adventure in wilderness and historical settings; their tightly plotted stories stress courage and cooperation and are classed as inspirational coming-of-age reading.