Published by Grosset & Dunlap. The Tom Swift, Jr., books were a fun, upbeat, and interesting adventure series published for kids from 1954 to 1971 that promoted science, fair-play, patriotism, and team-work; they were good, positive books. The series served as a sequel to the original Tom Swift series that appeared from 1910 to the beginnings of World War II; Tom and his sister, Sandy, are the children of the first Tom and his wife, Mary Nestor; Tom's girlfriend Phyllis Newton is the daughter of Tom Sr.'s sidekick Ned Newton (now Uncle Ned to Tom and Sandy); the family home is still located in Shopton along Lake Carlopa, etc. "There's part of Bud's wrecked plane!" Hovering his new cycloplane, the Drumhawk, in turbulent skies above the wilds of the New Guinea jungle, Tom Swift Jr. points to the sheared-off wing of his friend's plane. The area, flanked by two extinct volcanoes, is as forlooking as the deserted native huts clustered in sinister shadows."