On the shelf next to the Sugar Creek Gang series, you’ll likely find at least a few Danny Orlis books on any fundamentalist boy’s bookshelf. In 1954, author Bernard Palmer wrote Danny Orlis and the Charging Moose the first of fifty-two books staring Orlis as the teenage hero with the heart of gold. Unless one has read of Danny’s adventures they may never realize what a hotbed of crime and intrigue the woods of northern Minnesota can be.
Of course not every story takes place in Minnesota, our fearless hero manages to get involved in everything from being a bush pilot to playing football to having adventures on the Alaskan highway. Not bad for a young lad who is barely old enough to shave.
And it’s not just high crime and wild adventures either, by the 1970’s Danny (who was somehow still a teenager) was also tackling the tough moral issues in stories such as The Live-In Tragedy and A Teen-Age Marriage.
There are many lessons to be learned from books like these: capture the bad guys, resist peer pressure, and above all avoid the charging moose.
I loved reading Danny Orlis when I was a boy. I think I even won a few books from memorizing Scripture through Bible Memory Association. Are thee books still available anywhere?
Evidently, Sword of the Lord has picked up publication of some of these books.
And there are the ubiquitous used copies at amazon.com
I’m pretty sure I’ve still got some of my DO books stuffed away in a box somewhere, right next to my Sugar Creek Gang books.
Yay, I has some too!
What? No mention of Kay, the godly young woman who eventually married Danny?
My siblings and I always joked about these books. Ever notice how Danny was practically perfect (while everyone else in the books sinned)?
I have to say… you either never read those books, or are remembering some othere series.
The truth is Palmer was leagues ahead of Paul Hutchens [SUGAR CREEK] and Basil Miller [the KEN series]– just to name two– when it came to the inclusion of realism is his books. Danny Orlis made LOTS of mistakes, actually, and even had small crises of faith from time to time. Those books were very superior.
Palmer was a good, solid writer who avoided sectarian biases and created evangelical fiction that never once talked down to his audience. The sports and outdoors aspect was particularly well-done… on a par with the excellent secular CHIP HILTON series.
But, then again, I am getting the idea this site is more about sneering and being some weird, recovering-fundy version of “cool” than presenting things honestly…
I stand by my assessment, jerry. I did read them. I do remember them.
I was actually addressing the commenter RJW.
Your assessment wasn’t inaccurate. His [hers?] was.
Oh, I see.
I’m a victim of my own threaded comments. 🙂
It’s been years since I read either, but I keep mixing up Danny Orlis with Danny Dunn, a boy scientist who keep getting into adventures with his friends and family friend Professor Bullfinch, who’d invent things like shrink rags, computer-run houses, time machines, etc. No scriptures or moral lessons, but a lot of cool escapades. 😎 Don’t know if I ever read Danny Orlis.