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.