Captains Courageous

Kipling wrote this while living in Vermont, and it is his American book: the spoiled teenage son of a railroad millionaire goes overboard off an ocean liner, is fished out by a Gloucester cod schooner, and is put to work for a season because the captain will not turn the boat around. The education is the plot — the boy learns the trade, the crew, and the price of everything, and the book ends with him competent.

At Lexile 1020 it is one of the easiest entries in the adult band, and its presence on a list about forming citizens is self-explanatory: it is a straightforward argument that character is made by labour among people who do not care who your father is.

Context: The gentlest of the Adventure entries by reading level, sitting between three Cooper novels and Dana’s sea memoir.

Connections

• A Library to Build Great Americans — the list this came from.
• Rudyard Kipling — the author.