Good Company: Storms, Secrets, and the Bonds That Hold is Book 2 of The Bay Boy Chronicles, a three-book middle-grade adventure series set on Florida's Choctawhatchee Bay in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Alvin Hicks is twelve now. The world has gotten larger. Billy Spence still knows too many facts. And the community has opinions about what a boy is supposed to know—and what happens when he falls short of it in public.
In this second book, Alvin moves out of the family circle and into the community around him, discovering that belonging isn't given. It's earned.
In nine connected adventures:
Alvin remembers the Sunday morning, when he was five, that a coachwhip snake entered the outhouse. Billy Spence delivers the longest fact lecture of his career—covering gourds, purple martins, plant taxonomy, and the complete history of the Cucurbitaceae family—while Alvin plants gourd seed in his father's watermelon patch, and Daddy finds it. Three boys install fiberglass insulation in a July attic in shorts and short-sleeved shirts and return the next day in full winter gear. A chewing gum negotiation with his sister's boyfriend teaches Alvin that paying attention to a room is itself a form of competence. The Freeport Rattlesnake Rodeo brings hundreds of people together around a handler, a coiled diamondback, and a row of inflated balloons.
And on the first day of his first deer season, Alvin falls sound asleep on his stand—and Uncle Clifford Shaw, who has his own score to settle, is the one who finds him.
Like every book in The Bay Boy Chronicles: True Adventures, Hard-Won Lessons, and Growing Up on the Florida Panhandle, Good Company stands alone—you do not need to read Book 1 first. But if you have, you know exactly what you are getting into.
For independent readers ages 10 and up. Accessible for ages 8–9 with read-aloud or guided reading.
Each chapter includes Billy's Fact File (real science and natural history—including longleaf pine ecology, gopher tortoise biology, rattlesnake venom chemistry, antivenom production, and the history of the naval stores industry), A Word Worth Knowing, The Hunt, and a chapter quiz—all written in Alvin's voice. The final quiz question connects content from two separate chapters, asking readers to trace the ecological chain from a tar kiln to a gopher tortoise to a rattlesnake to a medicine that saves lives.
Supports Common Core ELA skills, including vocabulary, close reading, text-based evidence, and discussion, and reflects the inquiry-based approach of the Next Generation Science Standards. An educational features statement is available at www.dondbrownbooks.com.
