R. M Ballantyne
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This is the story of the hard life of a trapper in Canada in the early 1800s. Charlie Kennedy lives in the Canadian arctic colony known as the Red River Settlement with Indians, Scotsmen, and French-Canadian settlers. His father, an old fur trader, hopes to convince his son to become a clerk by recounting the dangers of the trapper's life, but the stories only inspire the boy more to explore the vast Canadian wilderness.
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The story follows Charlie Brooke, a kind and wonderful man, and his friends in adventures that range in location from the sea with all of its perils, to the slums of London, to the rugged wilderness of the Rocky Mountains. The story is full of adventure and includes shipwrecks as well as the classic cowboy and Indian combination, which can never go wrong!
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(Excerpt): "Everyone has heard of those ponies-those shaggy, chubby, innocent-looking little creatures-for which the world is indebted, we suppose, to Shetland. Well, once on a time, one of the most innocent looking, chubbiest, and shaggiest of Shetland ponies-a dark brown one-stood at the door of a mansion in the west-end of London. It was attached to a wickerwork vehicle, which resembled a large clothesbasket on small wheels. We do not mean, of...
25) Rivers of Ice
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Excerpt: "On a certain summer morning, about the middle of the present century, a big bluff man, of seafaring aspect, found himself sauntering in a certain street near London Bridge. He was a man of above fifty, but looked under forty in consequence of the healthful vigor of his frame, the freshness of his saltwater face, and the blackness of his shaggy hair."
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(Excerpt): "Old Ravenshaw, as his familiars styled him, was a settler, if we may use such a term in reference to one who was, perhaps, among the most unsettled of men. He had settled with his family on the banks of the Red River. The colony on that river is now one of the frontier towns of Canada. At the time we write of, it was a mere oasis in the desert, not even an offshoot of civilisation, for it owed its existence chiefly to the fact that retiring...
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Excerpt: "The hour was midnight. This fact was indicated by the family clock-a Dutch one, with a face which had once been white, but was now become greenish yellow, probably from horror at the profanity of the artist who had painted a basket of unrecognizable fruit above it, an irate cockatoo below it, and a blue church with a pink steeple as near to the center of it as the hands would admit of."
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(Excerpt): "Wet, worn and weary-with water squeaking in his boots, and a mixture of charcoal and water streaking his face to such an extent that, as a comrade asserted, his own mother would not have known him-a stout young man walked smartly one morning through the streets of London towards his own home. He was tall and good-looking, as well as stout, and, although wet and weary, had a spring in his step, which proved beyond all question that he was...
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One day, many years ago, a brig cast off from her moorings, and sailed from a British port for the Polar Seas. That brig never came back. Many a hearty cheer was given, many a kind wish was uttered, many a handkerchief was waved, and many a tearful eye gazed that day as the vessel left Old England, and steered her course into the unknown regions of the far north.
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Excerpt: "Mr. John Sudberry was a successful London merchant. He was also a fat little man. Moreover, he was a sturdy little man, wore spectacles, and had a smooth baldhead, over which, at the time we introduce him to the reader, fifty summers had passed, with their corresponding autumns, winters, and springs. The passage of so many seasons over him appeared to have exercised a polishing influence on the merchant, for Mr. Sudberry's cranium shone...
32) Jarwin and Cuffy
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(Excerpt): "In all the wide expanse of ocean that surrounded that island, there was nothing visible save one small, solitary speck on the far-off horizon. It might have been mistaken for a seagull, but it was in reality a raft-a mass of spars and planks rudely bound together with ropes. A boat's mast rose from the center of it, on which hung a rag of sail, and a small red flag drooped motionless from its summit. There were a few casks on the highest...
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The Garret and the Garden by R. M. Ballantyne is a children's story about a young boy who moves from the city to the country. He is initially excited to be living in a house with a garden, but he quickly becomes bored since he doesn't know how to garden. He learns to garden from his elderly neighbor, and he eventually comes to love gardening.
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(Excerpt): "On a certain breezy morning in October-not many years ago-a wilderness of foam rioted wildly over those dangerous sands which lie off the port of Yarmouth, where the Evening Star, fishing-smack, was getting ready for sea. In one of the narrow lanes or "Rows" peculiar to that town, the skipper of the smack stood at his own door, grumbling. He was a broad burly man, a little past the prime of life, but prematurely aged by hard work and hard...
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Set in the outback of Canada this book unfolds in the area with which Ballantyne was so familiar. If you like to read about this area you will find lots in this book to amuse you. (Excerpt from Chapter I): "On the northern shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence there stood, not very long ago, a group of wooden houses, which were simple in construction and lowly in aspect. The region around them was a vast uncultivated, uninhabited solitude. The road...
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This is the story of Jasper Derry, a Canadian trapper who is traveling to Fort Erie to marry his fiancé and begin a family. It includes John Heywood's adventure with a ferocious grizzly bear and the evil machinations of Darkeye, an Indian chief. A classic for young readers, ages about 12-16 or so, and great for adults as an action/adventure tale set in the wilderness in the 1800's.
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The Coral Island is a novel by R. M. Ballantyne that tells the story of three boys stranded on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. The boys must use their ingenuity and skills to survive, eventually building a thriving community on the island. The Coral Island is a classic adventure story that is beloved by generations of readers.