Swallows and Amazons (Paperback)

"Swallows & Amazons" is now derided by many for being dated, dull and politically incorrect.

However it proved to this reader that books were A GOOD THING. To a seven year old, the book gathers you in and makes you care about and identify with the characters. This was the first proper book I ever read and understood.

Of course the writing is dated. Of course children can't roam as free as John, Susan, Titty and Roger do any more. Yes, there's no real story as such - but it DOESN'T MATTER.

I challenge anybody with open mind to read the first 50 or so pages of this book and not care about the participants and carry on entranced to the end. And the good news....there's plenty more in the series to read.

Last year, for the first time, I was ecstatic to be able to visit "the" Lake and actually landed on "the" Island. I was 34 years old at the time.

Swallows and Amazons has gripped this reader for nearly 30 years. Even now, every few months or so, I dust down a treasured copy of one of the series and read on.

Not that this was ever Ransome's intention, of course. He was simply drawing upon his own boyhood experiences (from a yet earlier time) as well as contemporary ones of the children of a family friend. He used these to weave an enchanting tale that would remind those same children (by then returned 'home' to the deserts of the Middle East) of a happy summer spent sailing in England.

The story's strong basis in reality (albeit several separate realities, as it were), tempered with Ransome's love of sailing (and his knowledge of Lake District life), imbue the book with a strong sense of authority. Both the text and the author's own pen-and-ink illustrations also have an endearing charm that comes across even now, some 70 years after the book was first published. One of the great things about this book (and indeed, the whole series of books that was to follow) is that Ransome avoids most of the stereotypical treatments of children's roles that his contemporaries (as well as later authors) continually espoused. He always manages to treat (nearly!) all of his characters as equal partners in their activities, whatever their age, gender or background. The children are also afforded a greater respect and rather more freedom by the adults than is common these days, too.

And while the children's 'adventures' are nothing fantastical or extra-ordinary when viewed from an absolute perspective, Ransome manages to convey so much of the children's own excitement at their activities that the reader can't help being drawn into their world and so come to share some of that same excitement. All in all, this a delightful book and should be on everybody's essential reading list, regardless of their age!