SEA BOOTS

Young Pedro, not long from Mexico, was a stowaway when the fishing clipper, White Star, left the San Diego dock for a season's fishing in the waters off Central America. It wasn't long before the crew's mascot monkey discovered him, and for the first few weeks he stayed aboard as cook's boy with bare tolerance from Captain Mike. How Pedro wins the respect and rough affection of the men, how he is ultimately accepted as an apprentice fisherman, like his father before him, how- by accident- he and Sparks find the wreckage of his father's boat, and the cross that marks his grave, provide a manly story. Without undue emphasis, the author succeeds in making the fine earnestness, the humor, the Mexican-American lad brings to the threshold of his manhood and his chosen career palatable in a good story for boys to grow on.