Earl Reed Silvers (1891–1948)

Narrated by fifteen-year-old Ellen Wilson, a girl whose working class parents have scrimped and saved to afford her the opportunity to go away to summer camp in Maine, this novel centers around the reformation of spoiled society girl Carol McClure, Ellen's bunk-mate at HNC (Highland Nature Camp). Used to going to Europe for the holidays, Carol is not pleased to find herself in the wilds of Maine, and has little use for the "tommyrot" of camp spirit and customs. She develops an antipathy toward Doris Campbell, the girls' bunk-mate in Eno bungalow, and the two compete in various sporting activities throughout the summer. Slowly, through activity and through the good example set by the other girls, Carol begins to catch the Highland spirit. When a forest fire threatens the camp, she works with the other girls to protect the area, and steps in to help her team - the Greens - triumph in the camp competition...

The first of two novels devoted to the doings of the eponymous Carol, Carol of Highland Camp was published in 1927, and is apparently loosely related to author Earl Reed Silvers' trilogy about Barry Browning, begun in 1924 with Barry the Undaunted. The characters of the Barry series attend school at Cranford High, which is where the second book about Carol, Carol of Cranford High is set. In this novel however, there doesn't appear to be any overlap of characters, and I have not yet managed to track down a copy of the sequel. Leaving that aside, this was a fairly standard "reluctant/obnoxious camper is won over by the fun and spirit of the camp" story. It parallels some of Silvers' other books, such as The Spirit of Menlo, which, in a similar way, chronicles the experiences of a reluctant student being won over by the school spirit. Unfortunately, although she turns out to be the right sort in the end, Carol is not as appealing a character as some of Silvers' others, and the story is not as engaging. This was the fifteenth book I have read by this author, and is the one I enjoyed the least. Recommended primarily to Earl Reed Silvers fans (if there are any others out there), and to readers who enjoy vintage girls' fare.… (mehr)

Budd Williams and his friend Ned Freeman return in this sequel to The Spirit of Menlo, attending Menlo Summer Camp in the Lake Tahoe region of California. Most of the other campers are fellow students from Menlo School, but spoiled Gale Hopkins is not. Budd, who struggled to fit in himself when he first came west to California to attend Menlo, works to help Gale throughout the book, and to communicate the ideals and spirit of his school - that the team, the group, come first - to him. There's plenty of sports competition throughout the summer, and the boys enjoy many hiking and camping trips in the wilderness. In the course of their wandering, they meet an old prospector named Parson Pete, and become involved in an adventure capturing two robbers hiding out in the area...

I enjoyed The Menlo Mystery, although perhaps not as much as its predecessor. Somehow - perhaps because it chronicled Budd's very real distress at feeling like he didn't belong - The Spirit of Menlo had greater emotional resonance with me, as a reader. That said, this was an engaging follow-up, and featured many of the same lovely descriptions of nature that helped to make the first book so enjoyable. I've now read fifteen of Earl Reed Silvers' novels for young people, and these two Menlo books are the only ones I can think of, that contain such passages. Usually the attention is exclusively on the events of the story, with a little description of the characters' feelings and thoughts. I appreciated the more interior qualities of these books, and the greater level of natural description. I also found the passage in which Parson Pete gives the Bible to the robbers quite interesting, as Silvers almost never discusses religion in his books. Here, when Pete says that "there is no treasure like it in the whole wide world. Better men than you have fought and died for it. Worse men than you have been redeemed because of it," it's tempting to believe that he speaks for the author as well.

However that may be, this was an engaging and entertaining tale. It's rather obscure, and difficult to track down, but if one can find a copy, it will no doubt prove enjoyable for the reader who appreciates vintage boys' fare.… (mehr)

New Jersey boy Budd Williams goes west to California in this first of two novels devoted to his adventures, attending Menlo prep school on the San Francisco peninsula. A poor boy who works after school as a caddie, at the Colonia Country Club, Budd does everything he can to help his widowed mother, who takes in sewing to keep them afloat. He is convinced by the local doctor that going to college is a good idea, but when his mother's sight weakens to the point that she can no longer sew, he feels he must leave school in order to support her. It is then that Dr. Adriance steps in, offering Mrs. Williams a job as his housekeeper - a position that will spare her eyes - and sending Budd across the country to Menlo. Here he struggles to fit in, missing New Jersey, hostile to California, and convinced that the other boys do not accept him, because of his humble origins. It takes time for him to win friends, and to see the beauty of his new home, but eventually he gains the love of state and school that are so essential to the Menlo spirit...

Like so many of Earl Reed Silvers' books for young people, sport is central in The Spirit of Menlo: A Story of the Heart of a Boy, and Budd's experiences playing golf and football form a large part of the story. That said, the author explores other themes as well, and his descriptions of Budd's homesickness, and of his unhappiness at feeling like an outcast, were quite moving. Questions of social class and belonging are often interrogated in Silvers' books, but this treatment felt more immediate, probably because the tale was - atypically for the author's work - told in the first person. Silvers ties school spirit and loyalty to larger issues of citizenship here, as he does in so many of his books, with school principal Mr. Clements speaking of "school spirit being another name for patriotism, and how the boy who loved and fought for his school was the one who in after life worked for his home city, his state, and his country." Budd struggles with this idea of school spirit throughout the book, mostly because he doesn't feel like he belongs at Menlo, and because the other boys are frequently intolerant of his dissenting views.

There is an emotional resonance to this story that I find atypical in Silvers' work, which I tend to enjoy, but rarely find especially moving. As mentioned above, the first person narration is no doubt one reason for this. Another is the fact that Silvers devotes more time to his protagonist's inner struggles. Usually his heroes, if they have doubts at all, are easily won over to the central idea of loyalty to school and team, and doing one's best for the group. Here the process is more gradual, and the hero more reluctant. I was often uncomfortable with the intolerance shown to Budd, which I sometimes felt veered into the realm of bullying, and which the narrative seemed to support. On the other hand, I appreciated the fact that Silvers allowed Budd to come to his own conclusions through a longer process of experience, rather than through instant conversion.

A final aspect of the book which made it a little bit richer than many of Silvers' others, and was greatly appealing to me, was the wealth of lovely descriptive passages in which the beauty of the natural world was extolled. I loved the moment when Budd, newly arrived at Menlo, feels a connection to the oak trees: "I raised my eyes to look at the oaks again - counting them, somehow, as my friends." Later on that night, Budd looks out at the moonlit landscape, and is enchanted by what he sees: "the twisted oaks looked like gnomes in a fairy tale, and it seemed, somehow, as if they were holding their giant arms out to us in welcome. The night was still, and the fragrance of many flowers was all about us."

This is an obscure book, and difficult to track down. I sought it out myself because I am interested in Silvers' work. Still, if one can somehow obtain it, it is worth a read, particularly for those interested in sports fiction for younger readers, or vintage American boys' fare from the 1920s.… (mehr)

Rockwell 'Rocky' Hill and some of his friends from Highland High School - Bill Shaw, Joe Triola, Lew Hawley - head to the prestigious Glenwood prep school for a year in this sequel to Team First. With the exception of Bill, whose father owns the Highland Steel Mills, the boys are all far less affluent than their new peers - Joe's father runs a fruit stand, while Lew had left school in the past to work in the mills - and Rocky wonders if this will effect how they accepted at Glenwood. Fortunately, all four boys are athletes, and prove their worth each season, in the various sports - football in fall, basketball and swimming in winter, track and baseball in spring - in which they compete. They must confront a number of challenges, from a football coach who wants them to play dirty, to a conflict between the desire for personal achievement and the good of the team, but in the end they bring glory to Glenwood...

Although the aim of the boys in coming to Glenwood is to improve their academics before entering college, the focus in this story is on their involvement in their new school's athletic program. This is hardly surprising, as author Earl Reed Silvers' books are almost always concerned with sport, as a means of training boys to become good men, and as a field in which they must make character-building choices. I enjoy Silvers' work, which I generally find to have a fascinating mixture of outdated and progressive themes, and which opens up a window into an earlier time. That said, I do not think The Glory of Glenwood, published in 1931, is one of his better books. Some of the episodes here felt like nothing so much as a rehashing of those in the earlier Team First. Specifically, the way in which Rocky is forced to choose between the sport he wants to play and the one he feels he ought to, for the good of the school. The story-line with the overly brutal football coach, Mr. Hartwell, was quite interesting, in the sense that it offered the first and only instance I have encountered, in a Silvers book, in which the athletic authority figure is not an admirable one. Unfortunately, the way in which this is handled - although a few boys resign in principled protest, the narrative supports the idea that the boys who staid, despite their qualms, were in the right - leaves something to be desired. Apparently, when confronted with unjust authority, one should simply accept matters as they are, in order to support the larger institution (whether school, team or nation), rather than protest.

I did enjoy this one overall, despite the disagreement I had with Silvers on his approach to the issue of authority. It's one I'd recommend primarily to those who have read Team First, or who are fans of the author. Of course, I'm not sure there are any others, beside myself.… (mehr)