The Lion's Paw

At last, the beloved children adventure story "The Lion's Paw" is back in print to be shared with those you love. Already 9 yrs old, Nick, Penny's younger brother, knew he did not want to be adopted by Mrs. Wertz. On Penny's 12th birthday, Nick announced I'm going to run away." At their ages, they weren't cute babies, running away was the only way out of the orphanage... After walking all night, all the way to the sea, Penny and Nick collapsed and hid under the sails of a boat in the harbor. The next morning they found their sleepy faces at the wrong end of a dripping wet mop, standard punishment for stowaways, insisted one of the owners of the sailboat. The boat owner, Ben, was just 15 yrs old, a boy whose father the U.S. Navy insisted was MIA in the Pacific during World War II. The only way Ben could think of to prevent his uncle from selling his father's boat to a willing and waiting purchaser, and fulfill the boy's mission to make good on a promise he made to his father, was to sail her out to sea. That is the beginning of the tale of "The Lion's Paw". The three children are chased on a thrilling adventure steering the sailboat Ben's father made, hundreds of miles throught the inland waterways of Florida - on the St. Lucie Canal, from the Atlantic Coast all the way to the Island of Captiva in the Gulf of Mexico - keeping one step ahead of the Coast Guard, bounty hunters, alligators and tropical storms that threaten to deprive them of their quest for freedom.

In addition to being a screen writer for feature films and television series, Robb White is best known as the author of adventure stories for young readers. White's fans include children and baby boomers alike. Many of White's adventure novels featured young heroes working as a team, pulling together to "take on" the powers that be. Many of Whit'es fans were introduced to Smuggler's Sloop (1937), Three Against the Sea (1940), The Lion's Paw (1946), Sail Away (1948) in Scholastic editions in American public schools from mid-1940-1980s. White knew that young people appreciated his work most. He attributed this to their good, decent and courageous nature - exactly the kind of people about whom he enjoyed writing. White confided to Something About the Author that he liked "stories which dealt with ordinary people who survived in the face of terrible hardship..." White's work is often driven by a hero, a characteristic that is clearly present in Deathwatch (1972) where the protagonist no only battles his human persecutor, but barely survives the severe harshness of the American desert. Deathwatch has received numerous awards including the ALA Best of the Best Books for Young Adults, the New Yourk Times Outstanding Book of the Year (1972) and the Edgar Allen Poe Award (1973) for Best Juvenile Mystery from the Mystery Writers of America, and continues to receive strong domestic and international recognition as a great story for young readers today.