Here’s a funny aside. I had this book in the first draft. But then it hit me. Fifty years ago, this book would have been called “The Tame Book for Boys.” I was a middle-class kid, but we did more dangerous stuff all the time. Remember chemistry sets? Firecrackers? Rifles?...I know it’s a good and helpful book but this realization made me less enthusiastic.
I thought it a good book for a boy of 10 with no brothers, a dead father, a curious and mischievous mind.