The story of Harvey Cheyne Jr., a teenaged millionaire’s son, initially pampered and spoiled, who, quite literally, falls from grace. After tumbling overboard from a luxurious transatlantic steamship, Harvey is rescued by the crew of a fishing boat and faces months at sea before they plan to return to land.

Solid bildungsroman, although the action flags a little during the long months at sea, where the readers may also find themselves a bit lost among the sailors' jargon. It's a matter of absorbing the atmosphere and culture of the fishing boat, and see how Harvey finds his place among them. ( )

Although Captains Courageous is not a particularly complex story, it is nevertheless rife with concepts that serve as a foundation. It reflects the author's moral philosophy as well as his way of thinking about life. The relatively short novel focuses on 15-year-old Harvey Cheyne, the sole child of an American business magnate, as he grows up. Harvey, a once-pampered youth, learns what the American dream is via his interactions with unspoiled nature, hard work, and common guys, and he prepares himself to achieve it.

The book illustrates enduring American values while being on one level a sea adventure with a joyful ending. Harvey gains respect for hard effort, honesty, and social equality via his exploits. He also develops a sense of adventure, self-reliance, and pride in a task well done. As a result, he is ready to participate in the developing American drama. This is a great work to read as a young boy, but also warrants rereading when you are no longer quite so young. It bears the telltale signs of the great novelist who would go on to write Kim. one of my favorites. ( )

With the exception of the ubiquitous "Rikki-tikki-tavi," I think this is the first Kipling story I've read. I liked it a great deal. The plot concerns a spoiled rich kid who ends up on a fishing boat and learns the values of hard work. There's little of the philosophical baggage that weighed down London in The Sea Wolf; Kipling's only "message" is the promotion of an antediluvian vision of manly self-sufficiency, which is all par for the course in this genre.

The story is brisk and the characters are cheerful but my favorite part of the novel was the actual writing. Kipling's images are crisp and his words are a pleasure to say out loud. It's been too long since I read a book written with such a muscular joy in adverbs. ( )

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Can't quite remember when I read this one, but I thought it was very good. Transformation of a spoiled rich kid into a good, hard-working person under the guidance of a simple fisherman. ( )

A classic coming of age story, set at sea. It's a simple timeless classic full of the prejudices of the era and the author but still well deserving to be read. ( )

A spoiled, rich boy falls overboard and is rescued by a New England fishing vessel. Not believing his tales of his father’s wealth and promises of reward, the vessel’s captain continues with his season. The crew teaches the boy the value of hard work, the pride to be found in jobs well done, and help him learn his own worth is not tied to any worldly wealth.

Upon their return to home port, the young man is reunited with his parents, where his formerly distant father sees him in a new light and his mother is no longer allowed to shelter him from life.

An enjoyable tale that reminds me how much I like Kipling as an author. ( )

This book is not one that I read when I was young, but I wish I would have. This is another rip-roaring adventure written by none other than the great Rudyard Kipling. This book is an amazing sea story, but it is so much more. It is also a great coming-of-age story about a young 15 year-old boy by the name of Harvey Cheyne. Everything in Harvey's short life up to now is all opulence and excesses. His father is a multi-millionaire who denies his only child nothing. His life is like a fairy-tale, but it has taught Harvey nothing about being a man, having to work for a living, or how to get along with other men and boys and certainly not taught him to be unselfish and caring. When he falls overboard from a big ship into the Atlantic ocean, and then is picked up by a man who can hardly speak English and is taken to a fishing boat called the We're Here, Harvey's education begins. On this little fishing boat Harvey meets some life-long friends, and a captain who will teach him all he needs to know to be a man. So begins Harvey's life lessons. He will learn to "wet his salt" before the journey is done. The captain's son Don becomes Harvey's best friend and mentor, and in the three months he spends on the We're Here, he learns a heap about fishing off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. And all is told in Rudyard Kipling's wonderful language and his beautiful descriptive writing. I have always been fond of all manner of sea stories, and loved to read about ships and boats throughout the ages, but I think I got to know the little We're Here better than in most of my sea stories. That is Rudyard Kipling's talent. He makes everything come alive in his stories. The local dialect was a bit difficult to grasp at first, but the men on board this little fishing boat came alive to me. It is so good to read an old classic once in a while. Nothing can bring me out of a reading slump like a book like this can. Perfect! ( )

This classic seafaring coming-of-age tale takes place in 1897 in the North Atlantic. Harvey Cheyne, fifteen-year-old son of a millionaire railroad tycoon, is soft, rich and spoiled. While on vacation with his mother, he gets seasick and falls overboard the ocean liner. Coming to, he finds himself on a pile of dead fish in a fishing dory, saved by a Portuguese fisherman. He is brought to the We're Here, a Gloucester schooner. Captain Disko Troop doesn't believe his far-fetched tales of money and grandeur, instead thinking he hit his head when he fell and was crazy. With nothing but the clothes on his back, inadequate as they were for the job at hand, Harvey is forced to work for his food and passage until the fishing season ends and the ship returns home.

I loved this well-written classic tale, and the message it contains. The only thing about it to complain of is the ill-fitting title, which does not do the book justice. For the longest time before reading the book, I was under the impression it was about courageous captains, not a rich-boy learning what it's like to work. Five stars. ( )

I was coming of age (1962) ... whatever that means. So this book was appropriate. Plot is simple: spoiled, rich 15-year-old boy pulled from sea onto fishing schooner. He leaves the boat as a man. Dialogue was a bit challenging with fishermen lingo but I got through it. Good book with good message.

Quote from one of my favorite and important books I have read:

“Like many other unfortunate young people, Harvey had never in all his life received a direct order—never, at least, without long, and sometimes tearful, explanations of the advantages of obedience and the reasons for the request.” ( )

I had some difficulty with this book because much of it is written in a sailor's dialect. As I got into the book, the dialect became less and less of a problem. I enjoyed reading it despite not taking the time to understand the dialect.

This is a delightful coming of age story. ( )

dropped because of wording. Why are there so many not understandable accents? Igh. No thanks. ( )

Beautifully illustrated unabridged hardcover with definitions of hard words in the margins, as well as pictures of the many dated things mentioned in the book.

A spoiled rich boy falls overboard from an ocean liner and is rescued by the crew of a fishing vessel. He demands to be returned home immediately, but the crew needs to make their livelihood first—so it’s off to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland with this lad. Over the course of the fishing season, young Harvey learns how to do manual labour, work together as a team, and pitch in for the good of the crew. It’s a salutary lesson for him, and the story is a heartwarming one. I personally enjoyed it so much that I read ahead in my Serial Reader to finish it off. There was plenty of sea-dog talk to keep this nautical enthusiast happy, and the cast of characters was lively. There were downsides: few meaningful roles for women, by virtue of the story being set on a fishing vessel; and the dialect could veer into stereotypes. But overall this is easily my favourite Kipling story. ( )

If you like books where conversations are rendered in barely readable dialect misspellings and slang, and where there really is not much of a plot, just a situation and some vague character development, this book may be great for you. I personally found this to be a dull read, and there are some much better ocean adventure classics I'd recommend ahead of this novel (Two Years Before the Mast was great, as are the Horatio Hornblower novels). I can see how a younger child who is stuck going to school and doing chores someplace boring and ordinary might enjoy this novel as a way to imagine being someplace more exciting, since without a plot this novel does fairly well immersing the reader in everyday life on a fishing vessel, so long as the reader doesn't mind the slang and dialects. ( )

A book showing the Newfoundland cod fishery in its heyday. The dangerous lives of the fishermen and the sheer abundance of the cod in those times. I also found fascinating the rail journey made by the boy's parents when they come to meet him - it's a wonderful sense of speed and organisation, of messages sent ahead, trains rerouted, all in a time before modern computers and emails. ( )

A young man named Harvey comes from a well to do family. He receives a large allowance and never had to work a day in his life. That is until he falls overboard and is rescued by a fishing ship. He quickly learns how to work and becomes friends with the captain son who showed him the ropes.

A nice, short, sea story that carries a valuable message. ( )

A mini Moby Dick, focused on cod fishing instead of whaling. ( )

The transitions are a bit quick and the characters a bit one-dimensional but it was a good coming-of-age story and I enjoyed it. ( )

Essentially this is a boy's adventure story with a moral attempted and is intended as a coming-of-age story. It blatantly attempts to teach that too much hanging out with Mom creates weak boys and that roughness is needed. It anchors this lesson in the truth that boys need guidance from their fathers about how to be men. It emphasizes what could be considered traditional male values, such as self-sufficiency even though part of a team, pulling one's own weight as a team member, and "good natured" teasing while still remaining reliable if a real crisis occurs. That focus in itself, though limited in some ways, is not offensive and the community created among the men is even appealing. Unfortunately, the surrounding detail used to aid in teaching the moral was offensive. Women are shown to be whiny, weak, not particularly smart, and somewhat cruel, and "white" is used to mean upright and trustworthy. Additionally, Harvey's immediate and permanent conversion is a bit difficult to believe. In its entirety the plot was promising but the manner of its execution makes this book limited. ( )

In Captains Courageous the detail of fishing life are authentic, indeed anthropological. Kipling spent time in Gloucester and even went out on a ship for a while (though he spent most of the time sea-sick). He had an associate and the two collaborated, with Kipling writing the story and the associate writing the finer details and terminology. Unfortunately Harvey switches from being an irritating brat to a changed working man in a single scene at the beginning of the story, what? This was the heart of the book and it would have been better to do what the 1937 film did and play it out. Also at the end Harvey gets everything he wants and he looks like a spoiled rich kid again undermining the lessons of the book. Nevertheless this is a boys fairy-tale and is sort of like 12-year old crack, but still retains appeal to adults. ( )

A great coming of age book. Wonderful and exciting story of the sea and the men who make their living on it. ( )

Postponed reading this for years because I had this preconceived notion that it was a “children’s classic” – heavy on adventure, light on deeper meaning. Sure enough, the first 2/3rds of the tale are devoted to the adventures of Harvey, a spoiled, wealthy 13yr old boy travelling across the Atlantic on a ritzy ocean liner who falls overboard and is picked up by a cod-fishing trawler. Not believing his “high-falootin’” tales of wealth, the captain of the trawler refuses to interrupt his passage to drop Harvey ashore, instead putting him to work as part of the crew. In true Boy’s Life fashion, Harvey quickly learns the value of hard work and comes to respect the simple, honest, courageous crew of the trawler. So far so good, except that I defy any child alive to decipher this book in its original form which - Kipling proudly assures us in the forward - authentically reproduces the rich, idiosyncratic vocabulary of actual Gloucester fishermen, a dialect so obscure that it required all of my grown-up background knowledge and faculties to decipher. I can only assume that versions of this story actually intended for children are *heavily* edited to translate the almost indecipherable dialect into modern idiom.

My second mistake was forgetting that just because a book has a plot that happens to be accessible to children doesn’t necessarily imply that it is short of deeper meaning – as anyone who’s read The Prince and the Pauper, Tom Sawyer, or Gulliver’s Travels can attest. Just so with Captain’s Courageous, which over the course of the final chapters becomes a much bigger, broader exploration of what you might call “The Great American Origin Story” – that quaint yet resolute 19th century conviction that the U.S. is a land where any man not afraid of hard work and humility can rise to greatness. This part of the novel kicks off with a rather thrilling dash across the U.S. via train, evocative of the best chapters of 80 Days Around the World, and ends with Harvey discovering not just humility but also humanity. And because our author is Kipling, characters that we might have mistaken for caricatures early on suddenly deepen into richer, more fully realized humans, haunted by love and hope and tragedy.

I only hope that by sharing this, I may encourage other readers less patient than I not to jump to conclusions too soon. By all means enjoys the jolly sea-faring adventure while it lasts, but be sure to hang around for the poignant ending – you’ll be glad you did. ( )

A wonderful read too frequently relegated to Young Adult Fiction. It is just a very good read by a master storyteller. ( )