"Captains Courageous" by Rudyard Kipling is a wonderfully well written account of young Harvey Cheyne, a spoiled and underachieving young rich kid. He's on a cruise at sea when he's washed overboard. Rescued by a bunch of fishermen, he cannot make them believe he's a rich man's son. They offer him a job, and he has many adventures as he struggles to survive in the real world.
Kipling wrote in the 1890's, so the vocabulary is old-fashioned, and it isn't a perfectly "politically correct" tale, so take what it says in context. It's well worth reading, anyway!
Katherine Patterson's novel "Jacob Have I Loved" is very different. Set in the 1940's on the Chesapeake Bay, it tells of Sara Louise and her twin sister Caroline. Louise is constantly in her beautiful sister's shadow, and thus comes the titular reference - "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated". It is a powerful and moving story of the effects of jealousy, and the motivations of the family around us.
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