The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 5 November 2004
by William Dixon Bell
First published in 1938, the tone and attitude of this book might best be described as The Hardy Boys meet Lost Horizon. Indeed, in its opening chapters, this book bears a very close resemblance to large parts of the latter book, which was published five years earlier. Twin boys, Dave and Will, are quite young adventurers who have just completed the first trans-Pacific flight. Now, they're sitting on their laurels in Shanghai when they are approached by a mysterious bearded explorer who tells them a strange tale of Tibetan mountains and mysterious cultures embedded in remote valleys. He convinces the boys to fly him into Tibet to find his lost companion. They're game enough that they fly out of Shanghai and into the wilderness on short notice. They are pursued by a scar-faced Chinese man who is trying to protect his secret in the mountains. We don't get to that secret until very late in the book.
Written for young readers, the story appears to be an excuse to offer extensive adventures with airplanes, including chases, dogfights and various stunt flying and landing. But for a very few cultural references, very little of any Tibetan character can be found here. The enemies are Chinese, the one Tibetan character is there for less than a page and only to serve as a warning to the others. And the heroine is a blue-eyed white girl, the goddess of a race of white Tibetans enslaved by a Chinese man with a yellow airplane. Given its time, the book can be expected to have a Eurocentric point of view, and some of the typical prejudices and streaks of racism common to its era. The book is written for young people, and they may find it entertaining, but it would probably be counterproductive for educational purposes.