Captains Courageous

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For the movie of the same name, see Captains Courageous (film)

Captains Courageous is an 1897 novel, by Rudyard Kipling, that follows the adventures of fifteen year old Harvey Cheyne Jr., the arrogant and spoiled son of a railroad tycoon. Washed overboard from a transatlantic steamship and rescued by fishermen on the Grand Banks, Harvey cannot persuade them to take him ashore, nor convince them of his wealth. However, the Captain of the We're Here, Disko Troop, offers him a job as part of the crew until they return to port. With no other choice, Harvey accepts.

There follows a series of trials and adventures where the boy learns to adjust to his rough new life, and with the help of his friend, the captain's son, Dan Troop, he makes fine progress. Eventually, the schooner returns to port and Harvey wires his parents. They rush to the fishing town and find to their amazement that their child has become an industrious, serious and considerate young man.

Harvey's mother rewards the seaman who initially rescued Harvey and Harvey's father rewards Captain Troop by hiring Dan to work on his prestigious tea clipper fleet. As for Harvey, his father is delighted at his son's new maturity and their relationship dramatically improves even as Harvey as decides to begin his career with his father's shipping lines.

Disko Troop got his forename because he was born on board the We're Here near Disko Island on the west coast of Greenland.

[edit] Features that may confuse younger readers

A massive amount of non-standard English spelling, used to represent dialect speech in the conversations.
Words used in obsolete uses: e.g. "trawl" to mean "long-lining".
As with some other of Kipling's books, "nigger" used many times without being derogatory.
"Troops" used to mean "Disko Troop's family" rather than "soldiers".