Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Oh, no! He’s in trouble again. Deep trouble. Bomba the Jungle Boy, always moves cautiously in the Amazon Jungle but has encountered an attack by a boa constrictor. The, vicious snake has wrapped itself around him…Is Bomba doomed?

It was way past my bedtime and my eyelids were heavy, but I could not stop reading with Bomba in such a predicament. But yes, somehow he triumphed, emerging with a bite on his shoulder from the snake during the life and death struggle. but it had no poisonous venom. By the skillful use of his machete, Bomba survived to face future perils.

I closed the thick volume titled “Popular Stories for Boys,” and placed it on the bedside chest. Drowsy as I was, the battle between boy and beast had kept me on pins and needles. Would sleep come so soon after my involvement in such a perilous episode? Roy Rockwood’s novel, “Bomba The Jungle Boy” was one of four complete books in the frayed volume my husband bought at a used book store. It was published by Cupples and Leon Company with a 1926 copyright. Within the 204 yellowed pages, Bomba encountered danger after danger: blood sucking vampire bats; an attack by vultures; deadly snakes; fire; jaguars, and even capture by head-hunting cannibals.

There was never a drag in the entire novel. It left the reader asking for more when it reached a conclusion. At the close of the book, the author left a note to readers informing them if they enjoyed the stories and wished to follow the further adventures of Bomba, they could do so.

The publisher offered 15 more “Bomba the Jungle Boy “adventures with intriguing titles: “Bomba the Jungle Boy in the Abandoned City”; “Bomba The Jungle Boy on Terror Trail; “Bomba The Jungle Boy in Swamp of the Dead”; and “Bomba The Jungle Boy and the River Demons.”

In the year of copyright 1926, the books with colored cloth jackets sold for 50 cents per volume. To order, you were to send 10 more cents.

Probably out there are collectors who are interested in these books, or people like my late husband, who just enjoyed reading them. I don’t know about now, but at one time some were offered for auction on e-Bay. It has been years since I searched for any.

The author, Roy Rockwood, had a vivid imagination and the ability to produce page-turning chapters. The settings reached from the Amazon River to outer space. He also wrote several science fiction novels that commanded high prices at auctions. Some of them include adventures on Venus and the moon.

After I put down the Bomba book I mentioned here, I searched for more in my husband’s book shelves and found a 1928 novel, “Jungle Boy on Terror Trail” or the “Mysterious Men from the Sky.” I can’t wait to find out who those men were and all about where they came from.