Tom Slade: Boy Scout of the Moving Pictures

Tom Slade #1

by Percy Keese Fitzhugh

Percy Keese Fitzhugh (1876-1950) was an American author. His first known work, The Goldenrod Story Book was published in 1906. The bulk of his work, having a Boy Scouting theme, revolves around the fictional town of Bridgeboro, New Jersey. Characters included Tom Slade, Pee-wee Harris, Roy Blakely, and Westy Martin. Fitzhugh's Scouting based books were very popular with children and adults. His characters became so real to his readers that it was not uncommon for Percy to receive fan mail addressed to the characters themselves. In the 1930's, as the popularity of Fitzhugh's Scouting stories began to wane, he began writing the Hal Keen Mystery Series (10 titles) under the pseudonym Hugh Lloyd. They were followed by another mystery series - Skippy Dare - (3 titles). Neither of these series achieved the popularity of his earlier Boy Scout work.

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1915

About the author

Percy Keese Fitzhugh (1876-1950) was an American author. His first known work, The Goldenrod Story Book was published in 1906. The bulk of his work, having a Boy Scouting theme, revolves around the fictional town of Bridgeboro, New Jersey. Characters included Tom Slade, Pee-wee Harris, Roy Blakely, and Westy Martin. Fitzhugh's Scouting based books were very popular with children and adults. His characters became so real to his readers that it was not uncommon for Percy to receive fan mail addressed to the characters themselves. In the 1930's, he began writing the Hal Keen Mystery Series (10 titles) under the pseudonym Hugh Lloyd. They were followed by another mystery series - Skippy Dare - (3 titles). Neither of these series achieved the popularity of his Scout work.

Reviews

[Pop Bop · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Original, (First?), Movie Tie-In Book

This is the first book in the brilliant "Tom Slade" series, which ran to 19 books between 1915 and 1930, and ended up spinning off numerous series featuring other Boy Scout characters from Tom's Bridgeboro Troop, such as Pee-Wee Harris.

But get this. This first book is actually a novelization of a 1915 silent movie titled "The Adventures of a Boy Scout". It's hard to find out much about the movie; the only castmember reference I can find is "Woodrow Wilson as himself", which just cracks me up. It seems the movie was produced, at least in part, by the Boy Scouts of America, (which had just been established in 1910), and it appears that the Scouts approached Fitzhugh to pen a Tom Slade series, in part because Fitzhugh had already written a few successful Boy's Own style adventure books. The whole series was reprinted in 2008 by Norton Creek, but almost all of the books are public domain Kindle freebies.

Anyway, this is the weakest of the Tom Slade books because it had to follow the movie plot and feels like it was written before Fitzhugh got a handle on the Slade character. Sometimes it reads and looks more like a script than a novel, and it's awfully heavy on "authentic" slum kid dialect. That said, it does lay the early groundwork for the Slade character and introduces most of the characters and many of the themes that were carried on in later Slade and Bridgeboro Scouts books.

The first three books in the series are the most Scoutish; as Slade got older his stories drifted into world War I heroics and then post war adventures and mysteries. The spin-off books stayed focused on Scouting, and, indeed, Pee-Wee Harris appears in Boy's Life comics and features to this day.

All of the Slade books are worthwhile. Tom Slade is not a magical, golden, super-Scout, (that's Roy Blakely). Slade grew up hard in the slums of Barrel Alley and always retained an odd combination of toughness, grit, determination, and humility. His good intentions and good deeds are often misunderstood, (a major recurring theme throughout the series), and he suffers a fair share of unjust hard knocks. Sometimes the stories feel like an unlikely combination of Horatio Alger striving and juvenile noir in which good intentions and bad breaks mingle, although justice does always win out in the end.

The books also include ripping adventure, realistic outdoor and camping scenes, and gentle, joshing humor. There are surprisingly insightful conversations and thoughtful dialogues. Interestingly, the girls who appear are smart, feisty, and vocally dismayed that they don't get to do the boy things that the Scouts enjoy. Not generally what you might expect from a book published in 1915, and the sort of aspect that elevates the Slade books above mere escapism.

So, whether you are looking for just a Kindle freebie/cheapie, or a Scouting book, or just a change of pace, this is an interesting find. This book and its sequel "Temple Camp" are well worth reading.