Author: Bruce A. Francis

1Camp-Fire Girls at Twin Lakes or The Quest of a Summer Vacation

By Stella M. Francis

“Girls, I have some great news for you. I’m sure you’ll be interested, and I hope you’ll be as delighted as I am. Come on, all of you. Gather around in a circle just as if we were going to have a Council Fire and I’ll tell you something that will—that will—Teddy Bear your teeth.”<br> A chorus of laughter, just a little derisive, greeted Katherine Crane’s enigmatical figure of speech. The merriment came from eleven members of Flamingo Camp Fire, who proceeded to form an arc of a circle in front of the speaker on the hillside grass plot near the white canvas tents of the girls’ camp. (Gutenberg)

2Camp-Fire Girls In The Allegheny Mountains or, A Christmas Success Against Odds

By Stella M. Francis

The Camp Fire Girls books is a series of fiction novels written for children by various authors from 1912 into the 1930s. (Wikipedia)

<br />M. E. Francis was born Mary E. Sweetman in Dublin and moved to Lancashire on her marriage to Francis Nicholas Blundell, of the Blundell family, who remain squires of Little Crosby, the last Catholic recusant village in England, which lies a few miles north of Liverpool. Blundell died young and Mary went on to write more than 50 books, using her husband's Christian name as pen name, including this collection of 12 stories set in Little Crosby (‘Thornleigh’). <br /><br /> A romantic portrait of mid-19th century village life written from an aristocratic point of view, <em>In a North Country Village</em> (1896) is built around striking portraits of strong Lancashire women surviving in the face of Hardyesque tragedy and the weaknesses of their men folk. M. E. Francis set many of her books in Ireland and Dorset, but several were set in Lancashire, including <em>A Daughter of the Soil</em> (1895), <em>Yeoman Fleetwood</em> (1900) and <em>Marjory o'th' Mill</em> (1907). (Summary by Phil Benson)

Teen-ager Hazel Edwards and the other twelve members of the Flamingo Camp-Fire Girls experience some real adventure when they are invited to spend part of their summer as guests of Hazel’s elderly aunt on her large country farm. Mrs. Hannah Hutchins is a widow living alone with a few servants and farming assistants in her home in the Midwestern town of Fairberry. The girls set up camp on a section of Aunt Hannah’s farm but, before too long, an incident occurs during the annual Fourth of July celebration in Fairberry. What happens will have far-reaching consequences for Hazel’s Aunt Hannah and the girls of Flamingo Camp Fire as they must use the skills they’ve gained to fend off desperate characters and help Aunt Hannah to ‘remember’ what she forgot. This book, Camp-Fire Girls in the Country or The Secret Aunt Hannah Forgot, is one of numerous books written about the Camp-Fire Girls and their experiences. (Summary by Lee Ann Howlett.)

Jātaka tales are ancient Indian folktales that form a part of Buddhist teaching, telling stories of the Buddha’s past lives. Akin to Aesop’s fables, some strikingly similar, they urge the listener to moral behavior and often, more than that, point a way to real insight. - Summary by Scotty Smith

6Fiander's Widow

By M. E. Francis

A rural romance, as described by the author, set in Dorset. A 58 year old farmer meets the beautiful young grand-daughter of a recently deceased friend and they marry but she is soon widowed herself. - Summary by Belinda Loveday