Thanks for finding it.

maybe I found the story or maybe it found me but I decided it was worth sharing and that's only a small
part of it. So the short answer is "You're welcome".

I love how the boys took care of the boy who broke his leg and where able to splint the leg so that it healed.

It would be wonderful to watch the re-creation of the boys' adventures.

Mead said that the first evidence of civilization was a 15,000 years old fractured femur found in an archaeological site. A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. This particular bone had been broken and had healed.

Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, you cannot drink or hunt for food. Wounded in this way, you are meat for your predators. No creature survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. You are eaten first.

A broken femur that has healed is evidence that another person has taken time to stay with the fallen, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended them through recovery. A healed femur indicates that someone has helped a fellow human, rather than abandoning them to save their own life.

“Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts,” Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; For, indeed, that's all who ever have.”

https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0111/mead.html for more on Margaret Mead

examples of animals helping ea other, sometimes across species, and no doubt our primate ancestors did care and did what they could to the best of their abilities. Its probably having agriculture and plentiful food source that allowed people to stay in one place and be able to care for their sick and injured - whereas strictly hunter-foragers might not have that luxury.

Thank you for sharing this. I will read the book.

to be the second (first was Trump of course) thread I read. That entire article was just all smiles and happy thoughts about what a wonderful group of boys they were.

Beyond that, it just goes to show you, we often like to be entertained in a manner that we can see others being bad so we can feel good about ourselves.

I just loved this, thank you for the big smile on my face right now that will get me through this day and likely more. I absolutely loved the ending.

What a great story.

A novel by R. A. Heinlein which came out a year after Golding's. It seems such a clear refutation of Lord of the Flies as to almost seem definitely written as a response, although there is no documentary evidence of this. It's interesting that, when the castaways are rescued in Heinlein's book, their story is immediately distorted and misrepresented by the media to make their ordeal appear much nastier than it was. Tunnel is remembered only condescendingly as one of Mr Heinlein's "Juveniles," whereas Golding's book is a classic of English literature. I can't really speak to the literary quality of Lord of the Flies, since I've never read it and know it only by reputation. My point, though, which possibly Mr Heinlein would have shared, is that society is apparently always more ready to believe the worst of people, than the best.

-- Mal

I haven't read for comparison Golding's book. Tunnel in the Sky is not literature, like two or three other of Heinlein's rise to, but definitely a good read and not a superficial simplistic story.

One of the themes is one that is consistent throughout Heinlein's writing; the competent person who keeps their head when all about are losing theirs. Much more like the story from real life in the OP than Golding's fantasy.