Tom Swift, in his first adventure, has purchased a motorcycle and immediately gets busy modifying it. Eager to test his enhancements, Tom volunteers to transport his father's revolutionary turbine design plans across the country roads to Albany. Unaware of the evil corporate investors who want to steal the invention for themselves, Tom falls into their trap and finds himself facing the greatest peril of his young life. It is up to Tom not only to retrieve the blueprints and turbine prototype, but also to bring a gang of hired thugs to justice.

The story of Tom Swift's wish for a motorcycle and how his wish is granted unexpectedly.

This is the first book (of 40, counting two big-little books) in the original Tom Swift series. Although in later volumes Tom invents some fantastic stuff (for the period, 1910 - 1938), but in this one, he starts amall, buying a motorcycle (relatively new stuff in 1910) from the eccentric Mr. Wakefield Damon, who accidently tried to climb a tree with it. Tom improves the machine and uses it to attempt to bring a model and papers of his father's latest invention to Albany where the family's corporate lawyer was. Tom is waylaid but a gang intent on stealing the invention, and does some detective work tracking the men down after they succeed in their theft. He starts after them alone, but meets Mr. Damon and his friends, and they succeed in regaining the model and papers - the crooks manage to get away, to come back in "Tome Swift and his Motor Boat", the 2nd book of the series. We briefly meet Mary Nestor, whose horse runs away with her, but she figures more prominently in later volumes. With a more significant role, we also meet Eradicate "Rad" Sampson, and African-American man-of-all-work. Unfortunately he is given the stereotypical speech patterns given to black characters in the period this is written, but his characterization is usually quite positive (he often provided some comic relief, as he's reluctant to go on some of Tom's inventions later on). Rad, in this first book, is shown as industrious and repeatedly acquires better tools throughout the book (although Tom either fixes or improves the tools), and it is Rad that gives Tom the clue that tracks down the thieves. Ned Newton, Tom's friend, and Andy Foger, Tom's enemy, are also introduced, but their parts are small; like Mary, they become more significant later.American boys' fiction under pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate who produced Tom Swift series, Nancy Drew mysteries, the Hardy Boys, Dave Fearless and many others.A number of scientists, inventors, and science fiction writers have also credited Tom Swift with inspiring them, including Ray Kurzweil, Robert A. Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov. The Tom Swift, Jr. adventures were Steve Wozniak's favorite reading as a boy and inspired him to become a scientist. According to Wozniak, reading the Tom Swift books made him feel "that engineers can save the world from all sorts of conflict and evil."

TOM IS IN DEEP-SEA TROUBLE... Tom. Bud, and Yo are on the S.S. Nestor, a Swift Enterprises research vessel, to witness Mr. Swift testing his submersible, the Verne-1. Mr. Swift plans to use the Verne-1 to place a network of seismometers on the sea floor to detect underwater earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other phenomena that might generate tidal waves on the ocean's surface. But when an unexpected storm hits and the S.S. Nestor looses contact with the Verne-1, it's up to Tom to save his father.

A story of magic, family, a mysterious stranger . . . and a band of marauding raccoons. Otter Lake is a sleepy Anishnawbe community where little happens. Until the day a handsome stranger pulls up astride a 1953 Indian Chief motorcycle – and turns Otter Lake completely upside down. Maggie, the Reserve’s chief, is swept off her feet, but Virgil, her teenage son, is less than enchanted. Suspicious of the stranger’s intentions, he teams up with his uncle Wayne – a master of aboriginal martial arts – to drive the stranger from the Reserve. And it turns out that the raccoons are willing to lend a hand.

Tom Swift and his MotorcycleFun and Adventures on the Roadby Victor AppletonTom Swift, in his first adventure, has purchased a motorcycle and immediately gets busy modifying it. Eager to test his enhancements, Tom volunteers to transport his father's revolutionary turbine design plans across the country roads to Albany. Unaware of the evil corporate investors who want to steal the invention for themselves, Tom falls into their trap and finds himself facing the greatest peril of his young life. It is up to Tom not only to retrieve the blueprints and turbine prototype, but also to bring a gang of hired thugs to justice.