Tom Fairfield in Camp; or, The Secret of the Old Mill

Chapman, AllenProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.6
Word count
239K words
Chapters
24

Tags

English Originals Children's Literature Summer CampSuspense ThrillerCampus LifeAdventure JourneyFriendship TestedRetro AdventureMystery SolvingComing of AgeAnglo-American YouthYouth 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.Tom Fairfield in Camp; or, The Secret of the Old Mill by Allen ChapmanAuthor: Chapman, Allen,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Nov 27, 2013

Editor's review

This is a volume in the "Tom Fairfield" series of boys' adventure novels. The author, Allen Chapman, tells in a brisk style a story in which camp life and the secret of the old mill are intertwined. The book's strength lies in its natural combination of outdoor camping, companionship, and puzzle-solving adventure; the pace is lively and the chapters short, making it suitable for cultivating an interest in reading. It belongs to the tradition of early twentieth-century American juvenile literature, with clear-cut good and evil characters and straightforward plot development, and it reads today with a nostalgic flavor. For young readers, it offers a safe and enjoyable adventure; for readers studying juvenile literature or doing English extensive reading, it is a light sample for understanding the narrative conventions of the genre. There is no need to demand depth; read it simply as a relaxing camp story.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Proceed chapter by chapter, and after each chapter summarize the events in one or two sentences to keep track of the clues.
  2. Divide unfamiliar words into those that affect understanding and those that do not; skip the latter to keep reading fluently.
  3. Before the secret is revealed, guess the truth, then compare your inference after finishing.
  4. Compare with other boys' adventure series to observe similarities and differences in character setup and plot patterns.

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

FAQ

What grade level of English is this book suitable for? This is an early twentieth-century juvenile novel; its sentences are somewhat longer than modern graded readers, but the plot is straightforward. It is suitable for students with late middle school to high school English reading foundations; try the first chapter to judge the difficulty.
Do I need to read the series in order? The volumes are relatively independent, and this book can be read on its own. If you want to understand the full context of the characters' relationships, reading in series order is more coherent, but it does not affect understanding of the main adventure in this book.
What kind of plot is "the secret of the old mill"? It is a puzzle-solving clue common in boys' adventure fiction, centered on an old mill near the camp and driving the companions to investigate and discover. The specifics require reading the original; the ending is not revealed here.

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About the author

Chapman, Allen Author

Allen Chapman is an author of English-language juvenile fiction about whom little is publicly documented; his nationality, dates of birth and death, and true identity remain unclear. Judging from the twenty-five works held in the collection, he wrote mainly adventure and coming-of-age stories for young readers, often set against railroads, school life and winter camps. Representative works include the "Ralph" series, such as Ralph, the Train Dispatcher and Ralph of the Roundhouse, which follow a railway boy's work and adventures, and the "Tom Fairfield" books, such as Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck and Tom Fairfield's Schooldays, which explore school friendship and tests of courage and reputation. The narratives are brisk, suspenseful and uplifting, portraying diligent, upright and responsible boys and lending themselves to themes of duty and friendship.