Nana's Book Library

Age: 12+

Particulars (Out of 5): 

• Is it a gripper?  Yes!  ***** 
• Great adventure for boys/young men, although girls who love Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys mysteries will love it, too ***** 
• Historical value:  *****  
• Positive role models *****
• Inappropriate language:  None.
• Sexual references:  None.  

Reminder:  Nana’s Books are rated G.  Anyone could read them, or listen to them being read aloud.

Before I get into the story of Foghorns, I want to introduce you to Howard Pease, a prolific writer whose career began in the 1920s and continued for more than 40 years.  His special gift was crafting stirring, exciting stories aimed at boys (although girls who love adventure and mystery stories will like him, too).  The only similar modern writer equivalent in scope, breadth of work and consistently great adventure stories I can think of is John Flanagan (I highly recommend you start with his Ranger’s Apprentice series, which I will be covering in another post.)  My dad loved HP’s books, and because of Dad, I became a huge Howard Pease fan years ago. 

         HP’s books, mainly nautical mysteries, are authentic because he lived what he wrote.  He traveled widely, working on cargo ships in the merchant marine. Most of his books feature Tod Moran, a young sailor who works his way up from mess boy (kitchen helper) and wiper (engine and machinery cleaner – a job Pease once held) to First Mate on a freighter called the Araby. In Foghorns, Tod is now Third Mate. The Araby’s captain is Tom Jarvis, and there are some other regulars in the ship’s crew, particularly Toppy and Sven, whom you will meet again.  (Note: the “Black Gang” refers to men who work in the engine room, also called firemen or stokers, who are covered with engine grease and coal dust.) 

         Although Tod Moran plays a key role in Foghorns, the main character is Greg Richards, fresh out of high school, who is flat broke.  He is desperate to get a job on a ship to make money to go to college.  But nobody will hire him – until “Mr. Brant,” a mysterious and quite sketchy man, sells him papers (with a false ID!) for a job on the Araby.  Greg buys the papers with his last few dollars.  Note:  Here, and several times in this book, Greg has a chance to say nothing, to go along to get along, to do the easy thing.  He never takes it.  He soon confesses to Captain Jarvis and Tod Moran that he bought the false papers.  He risks his job and personal safety when he could take a bribe and play it safe.     

         This is San Francisco in 1937, and we are right there in the thick of it with Greg. There’s unrest on the docks: unions on the brink of strike.  Pea-soup fog, and the ever-present foghorns.  Chinatown in all its mystery and beauty. There’s the Beef Squad, thugs hired to take out troublemakers.  There are messages in secret code.  And there’s sabotage:  someone is trying to ruin the Blakemore Company, which owns the Araby and some other ships.  Someone sets fires on the Araby, writes threatening notes, and even tries to scuttle (sink) the ship!  There are brawls and chases.

         My copy of this book, printed in 1937 with illustrations by Anton Otto Fischer, was a reject from the Free Library of Philadelphia.  I got it at a used bookstore for 50 cents.  It was well-loved, and here’s the best part: the secret code I mentioned above features letters underlined in different colors.  Some awesome reader back in the day took colored pencils and recreated the color codes in the secret message, right there in the library book!  I know, don’t deface a library book… but it made me so happy to think about all the readers ever since (including me), using this subtle color code to try and decipher the message.  This is a joy of used books:  sometimes, they become part of the story.

         This book is available in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover on Amazon.  But shop around!  It is also available on eBay and Abebooks, but I would also try interlibrary loan and used bookstores, local as well as online.  

©Janet Farrar Worthington

Note:  I am an Amazon affiliate, so if you do click a link and buy a book, I will theoretically make a small amount of money, but I’m just starting this thing, so I don’t even know how that works.   Still, full disclosure, etc.