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SCOUTING WITH BADEN-POWELL by Russell Freedman

SCOUTING WITH BADEN-POWELL

by Russell Freedman

Pub Date: Oct. 15th, 1967
Publisher: Holiday House

The operative word is with—you'll fetch tea for the "uppers" at Charterhouse, travel from London to wales by collapsible boat (and a few portages), go pigsticking in India, reconnoitering in Afghanistan and Zululand, draw maps in the guise of butterflies' wings as a Malta-based spy, stalk the Ashanti on the Gold Coast and the Matabele in Rhodesia, and finally withstand the siege of Mafeking that made Baden-Powell the hero of Britain. You'll go with him not only because the adventures are continually intriguing or exciting but also because the fresh, lively telling, based on and incorporating excerpts from Baden-Powell's accounts, gives them a convincing immediacy. This was the first of his two-lives; the second, long since begun in little ways, was his initiation of the scouting movement, beginning with twenty-one English boys camping for a week on an island—tracking, blazing trails, building huts, signalling, tying knots, recognizing plants and animals—and a guidebook drawing on these and other experiences. How the movement grew and Baden-Powell was honored is told with pride that stays this side of idolatry. Boys—who needn't be Scouts—will enjoy it thoroughly.