Help identifying children's books from the 1960s

May 2, 2011 8:35 PM

Can you help me identify these children's books from the 1960s? A friend of mine has wonderful memories of three books he read in grade 7 in 1961 and would like help on finding them. The first one was a story about a young guy who sailed with Sir Francis Drake. The second one had a hero who was a young assistant to a doctor in Quebec City in the 1700s. The third one was about a fellow who was part of a salvage ship's crew. My friend borrowed these books from the school library (Holland Elementary School, Quebec City). All of these books were hardcovers and likely popular at the time.
posted by storybored to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

The salvage ship book was probably one of two different Farley Mowat books: Grey Seas Under or The Serpents Coil. I read both at that age, and many times since. Both were published about that time.
posted by rockindata at 9:45 PM on May 2, 2011

I'm not certain about the 2nd or 3rd, but the first one immediately rang a bell as likely being G. A. Henty's "Under Drake's Flag". Henty was a popular Victorian-era British author of adventure novels with a strong moral component, aimed at the juvenile male audience.

It's possible that the Quebec City story is "With Wolfe in Canada" and the salvage crew story... I got nothin'.
posted by richyoung at 9:46 PM on May 2, 2011

Were these a series and does your friend think they were newly published in 1961? If no and no, the first one could be the story "Simple Simon" In Rewards and Fairies. Having said that, there seem to have been a number of children's books about Drake published at least into the 1950s, like F. van Wyck Mason's Golden Admiral (1953).
posted by paduasoy at 12:35 AM on May 3, 2011

Could they have been from the We Were There series?
posted by padraigin at 5:06 AM on May 3, 2011