Book Review: "Swallows and Amazons"

Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons (first published 1930; my edition David R. Godine, 1985) is a wonderful little children's story set in the English Lake Country during the early decades of the 20th century. The four Walker children set off on a grand journey of sailing and exploration, filled with pirates, sharks, talking parrots, plank-walking, buried treasure, and all sorts of fascinating things like that. It's a good adventure story, and for anyone who spent their childhood camping, playing outside, building forts, and leading "expeditions" (even if it wasn't in the English Lakes), I suspect it will ring true.

Ransome's prose reads very nicely, and his own drawings which accompany the text are the perfect illustrations. I enjoyed this very much, and may keep my eyes peeled for the others in the series.