Haileybury was a boom town in 1910, the year the kid arrived. The timber and farm wealth of Tomiskaming had been suddenly multiplied by the riches from the Cobalt silver strike. The railway was through, heading north to gold. Dreams ran high, and there was money to indulge them. Haileybury blossomed with fine hotels, fancy clothes, splendid mansions, circuses, court houses, and a national league hockey team. Those were heady days. The kid was Leslie McFarlane, then age eight years. He went on in time to become one of Canada's most prominent writers, with a career that has included journalism, radio and television drama, film scripts and novels. But he saw his new home then through a boy's eyes, and in this book he tells it as it was. It's a view of Haileyburg that will be remembered.

A Kid in Haileybury

McFarlane, Leslie

Highway Book Shop

Leslie McFarlanes Hockey Stories (2005 publication)

Kry Prtr Bks

In Leslie McFarlane`s Hockey Stories, Vol. 2 celebrated Canadian author Leslie McFarlane once again takes readers on a nostalgic trip back to the glory days of our national sport. Although McFarlane`s main claim to fame is as a ghostwriter for the The Hardy Boys mystery series (Franklin W. Dixon didn`t exist), his work on that series never earned him enough to pay the bills. In order to supplement his depression-era income, the enterprising journalist dashed off stories about hockey and other sports and sold them to various magazines. Leslie McFarlane`s Hockey Stories, Vol. 2 includes four such stories, none of which have ever appeared in book form. Set primarily in the 1930s--in small, Canadian, hockey-crazy towns--these tales offer a Rockwellian glimpse at the rough and tumble world of minor-league hockey, and at the adventures that ensue when someone does manage to make it big. McFarlane writes with a perfect blend of sport and humour. Featuring fast-paced plots, compelling characters (good and evil!) and a healthy dose of hockey action, Leslie McFarlane`s Hockey Stories, Vol. 2 is bound to captivate hockey fans young and old. To young detectives worldwide, Leslie McFarlane was known under the pseudonyms Carolyn Keene, Roy Rockwood and, most famously, Franklin W. Dixon--author of The Hardy Boys series. McFarlane, who passed away in 1977, was one of the most successful Canadian writers of all time. ??a hilarious, nail-biting tail that hockey fans will find fascinating. McFarlane?s prose style is wonderful and smacks of a different era. ?they?re a punchy style totally unlike anything you?d read today. For middle-school readers and avid fans who want to see hockey from a different time and place, Hockey Stories is like a break-away ? it?s quick, exciting and over all too quickly.? ?Hamilton Spectator

Leslie McFarlane's Hockey Stories, Vol. 2

Teen & Young Adult

Literature & Fiction

Key Porter Books

"Ghost of the Hardy Boys is an elegant book, full of charm and pathos and whimsy. The writing is restrained, the characterizations deep and rich, the humor nuanced." --Washington Post As millions of boys and girls devoured the early adventures of the Hardy Boys, little did the young readers and aspiring sleuths know: the series' author was not Franklin W. Dixon, as the cover trumpeted. It was Leslie McFarlane, a nearly penniless scribbler, who hammered out the first adventures while living in a remote cabin without electricity or running water in Northern Ontario. McFarlane was among the first bestselling ghostwriters and this, at last, is his story--as much fun as the stories he wrote. In 1926, 23-year-old cub newspaper reporter Leslie McFarlane responded to an ad: "Experienced Fiction Writer Wanted to Work from Publisher's Outlines." The ad was signed by Edward Stratemeyer, whose syndicate effectively invented mass-market children's book publishing in America. McFarlane, who had a few published adventure stories to his name, was hired and his first job was to write Dave Fearless Under the Ocean as Roy Rockwood--for a flat fee of $100, no royalties. His pay increased to $125 when Stratemeyer proposed a new series of detective stories for kids involving two high school aged brothers who would solve mysteries. The title of the series was The Hardy Boys. McFarlane's pseudonym would be Franklin W. Dixon. McFarlane went on to write twenty-one Hardy Boys adventures. From The Tower Treasure in 1927 to The Phantom Freighter in 1947, into full-fledged classics filled with perilous scrapes, loyal chums, and breakneck races to solve the mystery. McFarlane kept his ghostwriting gig secret until late in life when his son urged him to share the story of being the real Franklin W. Dixon. By the time McFarlane died in 1977, unofficial sales estimates of The Hardy Boys series already topped 50 million copies. Ghost of the Hardy Boys is a fascinating, funny, and always charming look back at a vanished era of journalism, writing, and book publishing. It is for anyone who loves a great story and who's curious about solving the mystery of the fascinating man behind one of the most widely read and enduring children's book series in history.

Ghost of the Hardy Boys: The Writer Behind the World’s Most Famous Boy Detectives

David R. Godine, Publisher

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