Tom Slade with the Colors

It's 1917, and seventeen-year-old Tom Slade is sick of being a scout. While the world goes to war, he's stuck leading hikes and learning knots while older boys enlist and ship out. The only thing standing between Tom and the trenches is a promise he made to Mr. Ellsworth, his scoutmaster: stay home, hold the troop together, do your duty. But when Roscoe Bent, a fellow scout who fled his draft responsibilities, disappears into the wilderness, Tom is sent to find him. What begins as a rescue mission becomes something else entirely: a test of loyalty, courage, and what it really means to serve. Fitzhugh writes with the earnest energy of early 20th-century juvenile fiction, capturing that raw, restless feeling of being young and desperate to matter. The adventure has teeth, the characters have heart, and Tom's internal war between what he wants and what he owes feels achingly real. For readers who love old-fashioned adventure stories with real emotional stakes.