Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-10-25
proved popular at once. and appears to
be headed for Indefinite life

proved popular at once. and appears to
be headed for indefinite life.
One thing about juveniles everybody
has noticed is their tendency TO come
in series. Once you write q juvenile
story and it catches on. your publisher
is never happy till he has chained you
to galley and made you produce book
after book with variants Of the same
title. Witness the DR.. Doolittle
series) He has a good reason for this.
When boy or girl reads a book and
likes it. he or she Immediately wants
more Of the same AS there is a new
set of juvenile readers coming along
every year. it is essential to have a new
book for their parents to buy them. so
that after they read it they can clamor
for the older books by the same author.
In other words, to keep selling your
older juvenile stories, you have to keep
producing new ones. And don't know
1t! Far back in the mistS of history.
in 1912 Cor was it 1912? Either year
seems equally far away now l wrote
book called Boy Scouts Of Berk-
shire" in which I put a lot Of my
experiences as a Scout Master. Tie
book sold. and l was persuaded to
write second. Then a third. And
so on. apparently ad infinitum.
Having started with a definite To-
callty, which was not only featured in
the title but used to give some interest
in the story, definite localities seem to
be demanded in succeeding stories. AS
these books strive to be accurate, l have
to go to the localities, and I have to do
a lot of the things the boys subse-
quently do in the stories. I have been
up high mountains, I have descended
into deep canyons, / have padded a
dugout canoe in the waters of the Dis
NAL Swamp, I have toted a pack on
the Long Trail in Vermont.
Makes Sales Perk Up.
When I stop writing, the sales Of
the old books drop off. When pro-
duce new Boy Scouts somewhere
other, sales of all the past books in
the series perk up. None Of them has
ever sold like a best seller, but when
a book written in 1912 keeps on selling.
even in small amounts, in 1881, and
YOU keep on getting letters from small
boys about it. who discuss its char
acterS characters you have quite for
gotten) as If they were living people
AS indeed to the small boy they are
it gives you queer feeling. Not I'M
pleasant. 1t is even more pleasant
when q small boy arrives with his.
father at your house, and he gazes at
you much as you once gazed on Charles
Carleton Coffin and then produces a
copy very dirty Of your book, for
you to sign. 1t almost reconciles you
to the necessity of packing UP again
and going to some far place, there to
shin up and down precipices, and COM
ing home and spending two or three
months going back over your tracks in
imagination, with whatever Boy Scouts
you think could safely make the grade.
OF course, what I'd like to do is to
write boy Scouts in a Corner Of the
Library" to be followed by boy Scouts
on the Sitting Room Couch" but my
publishers don't seem to think this
smacks sufficiently of adventure. 1
shall probably die of old age at the
bottom Of the Grand Canyon or on
the glaciers of old Rainier Come to
think of 1t, I guess I'd rather die that
way.
Won't Spoil Memory.
The ether day I read in some lit
erary supplement criticism of Cooper,
OF his style and his women particu-
larry. Evidently 1t had occurred to the.
critic, perhaps as a result of growing
interest in all things early American.
from literature to warming pan and
decoy ducks, to reread The Spy" and
The Last of the Mohicans." I sup
pose that's all right, but not for me!
l nave no intention of spelling what
Is, suppose, the happiest memory of
my childhood-the hours spent with
Hawk Eye and Uncas.
What did care for the style? What
did l care for the psychology of the
women-if any? Here was a book of
adventure by man who knew what he
was talking about, knew how to tell a
story and could fire my Imagination
TIL the old frontier of my native land
became part of my living conscious