Description: For anyone who loves sailing and adventure, Arthur Ransome's classic Swallows and Amazons series stands alone. Originally published in the UK over a half century ago, these books are still eagerly read by children, despite their length and their decidedly British protagonists. We attribute their success to two facts: first, Ransome is a great storyteller and, second, he clearly writes from first-hand experience. Independence and initiative are qualities any child can understand and every volume in this collection celebrates these virtues.
Swallows and Amazons, the book that started it all in 1930, introduces the Walker family, the camp on Wild Cat Island, the able-bodied catboat "Swallow," and the two intrepid Amazons, plucky Nancy and Peggy Blackett.
Brief description:
Arthur Ransome spent his childhood in England's Lake District, and after a career in journalism that took him to Russia (where he married Trostsky's secretary), China, and Egypt (interspersed with summers of cruising through the Baltic Sea and the canals of Europe), he retired to Coniston where he could practice his favorite pastimes of sailing and fishing and where he wrote the Swallows and Amazons series.
Review Quotes:
"Clean and lively prose, with an earnest whimsy...The 12 books in the series are justly ranked as classics, standing with the children's stories of Kipling, Barrie and Grahame."--The Telegraph
"The author really does know how to write for children: in other words, he writes of what he himself delights in and so pleases without any effort both young and old."--The Nation "This book is both silvery present and golden retrospect. All that is tedious and sullen and deceptive vanishes in its sunniness as clouds vanish in the tempered air of a summer day. . . We think that the book will last, too, from edition unto edition."--Saturday Review "There is plenty of excitement, a little danger, a quality of thinking, planning and fun which is delightful and stimulating."--Times Literary Supplement "He makes a tale of adventure a handbook to adventure."--The Observer "For those who regret the hemming-in of childhood, the Swallows and Amazons are free-range children to gladden the heart."--The Wall Street Journal