James Otis Kaler was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 of children’s literature. He used the pen name

Pen name

A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...

 James Otis.

Life and career

Kaler was born on March 19, 1848, in Winterport, Maine

Winterport, Maine

Winterport is a town in Waldo County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,602 at the 2000 census. Each August the town hosts the Winterport Music Festival.-History:...

. He attended public schools during his childhood. Kaler got a job with the Boston Journal when he was in his teens. Later, he went on to work as a journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 or editor

Editing

Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...

 for various newspapers, superintendent

Superintendent (education)

In education in the United States, a superintendent is an individual who has executive oversight and administration rights, usually within an educational entity or organization....

 at schools, and a publicity man at a circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

.

In 1880, under the pen name

Pen name

A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...

 James Otis, he authored his first children’s book, Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus, a story about an orphan who runs away to join the circus. Following the book's success he went on to author numerous other children’s books.

After spending several years in the southeastern states, he returned to Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

 to become the first superintendent in South Portland. Kaler married Amy L. Scamman on March 19, 1898, and, together, they had two children named Stephen and Otis. Kaler died of uremia

Uremia

Uremia or uraemia is a term used to loosely describe the illness accompanying kidney failure , in particular the nitrogenous waste products associated with the failure of this organ....

 on December 11, 1912, in Portland, Maine

Portland, Maine

Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...

.

Books

• Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus (1880)
• Tim and Tip (1880)
• Left Behind (1882)
• Raising the Pearl (1883)
• Mr. Stubb’s Brother (1883; sequel to Toby Tyler)
• Silent Pete (1885)
• The Castaways
• A Runaway Brig; or, An Accidental Cruise (1888)
• The Adventures of a Country Boy at a Country Fair (1893)
• The Boy Spies at the Defense of Fort Henry
• The Boy Spies at the Battle of Bunker Hill
• The Boy Spies at the Siege of Detroit
• The Boy Spies With Lafayette
• The Boy Spies on the Chesapeake Bay
• The Boy Spies With the Regulators (1901)
• The Boy Spies With the Swamp Fox
• The Boy Spies at Yorktown
• The Boy Spies of Philadelphia
• The Boy Spies of Old New York
• When Washington Served the King published by A.L. Burt Company 1905
• Morgan the Jersey Spy

External links

• Works by James Otis at Internet Archive
  Internet Archive
  The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
  
   (original edition scanned books illustrated color)
• Original edition scanned books with illustrations at Google Books (plain text and HTML)
• James Otis (Kaler), a site devoted to Kaler and his work