Does anyone else love Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons" books ...

[milovany]

as much as we do?  We read S&A a couple of years ago and it was a big hit.  I've wanted to put book quotes in vinyl on my vehicle ever since (starting with "better drowned than duffers if not duffers won't drown"). We read Swallowdale next and admittedly didn't love it as much as the first.  Some of my kids have read a few others, and we just finished Winter Holiday as another read aloud and it also was a winner. 

 

Which in the series have you read, and why did you like/not like it?  I'd like to do more as read alouds.  I confess, I'm a bit wary of stepping out of the Lake District as future stories do, but Missee Lee is intriguing me right now.  Captain Flint is a favorite character.

 

Another series we like is the four-book Melendy Quartet by Elizabeth Enright. 

[Amber in SJ]

We love this series too, but I skip the occasional racist word and have changed the one character's name when reading aloud to avoid the giggles from my 9yo son.  My favorite is We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea. It makes me cry every time.  I skip Peter Duck.  Great Northern? is also fantastic.  Dick and Dorothy are lovely.  If only all the books were available on Kindle.  Roger is Dh's favorite.  It's an engineer thing, I guess :)

 

Amber in SJ

 

[Anne]

Oh, yes!!

 

Anne

[milovany]

... and have changed the one character's name when reading aloud to avoid the giggles from my 9yo son ...

 

What do you call her?  I didn't change it when we first started so I obviously can't now without explaining -- and I don't think my kids know what it's slang for so I'll leave it be for now.  Maybe someday when they hear it used as slang, and connect it with the character, they'll think, "Why is beautiful name being used like that???"  :D

 

Thanks for naming some specific books you like. Have you read the one about the hunt for gold? 

[justasque]

Missee Lee is very different than the others, with some racial content that reflects the time in which it was written.  

We are huge fans of the BBC TV versions of The Big Six and Coot Club, which we have on video.  

[myfunnybunch]

"better drowned than duffers if not duffers won't drown").

 

I say "If not duffers won't drown," often to my kids (and to my husband, to reassure him that they can handle whatever it is).

 

Swallows and Amazons is on my top ten favorite books to read aloud. (Along with about 50 other books! ;) ) I've got Swallowdale on our read-aloud list, but might try Winter Holiday instead. Thanks!

 

Cat

[milovany]

I think with Swallowdale, after enjoying Swallows and Amazons so much, we were left feeling like, "Get back out on the water already!" because we so loved their summer on the island and their sailing knowledge/adventures.  With Winter Holiday, the "feel" of Swallows and Amazons returns, but this time on ice, with snow and including skating and sledging. 

[Shamzanne]

I have only read the first but I love it. I am anxious to read the rest. Too many good books, so little time!

[Muttichen]

I love the Swallows and Amazons books!  They inspired my kids to learn to sail and have led us to many fun vacations!

 

 

My very favorites are Peter Duck, Missie Lee, and We Didn't Mean to go to Sea.  Coot Club is an awesome read aloud as well!  Swallowdale was all my kids' least favorite.  The only one I really didn't like was Secret Water.  The kids are playing at voodoo, and John and Nancy at the verge of a fight the whole time.

 

If I were you, I'd read them in order.  A lot of the books refer to things in other books.  For example, in Pigeon Post, Dorothea reads from a book she was writing in Coot Club.

 

Do you know there are movie versions of Swallows and Amazons, Coot Club, and The Big Six?  We like them!

[marbel]

These are our all-time favorite books, ever.  We have the whole set which we read one after another, without a break. 

 

I remember very well starting S&A and getting bogged down in the sailing talk.  We were close to giving up while on vacation but I'd brought  nothing else and we soldiered on.  Suddenly, it was fantastic and we couldn't stop reading!

 

We did not like Missee Lee very much.  It was just.... odd to us.  But that was the only one we didn't love.  I agree with the pp who said We Didn't Mean to go to Sea makes her cry.   We cried at the end of Great Northern too, simply because our adventure was over.

 

There is the occasional use of the N word - only in Peter Duck if I recall correctly (but don't hold me to that), but it is used in context for the time and I just read it.  My kids were old enough to understand the archaic use.  I didn't bother to change that gal's name, either. (Seems silly not to just type it but I get the google search problem.)  I just let my kid deal with it; there are always going to be words with double meanings. 

 

Happy to see others enjoying these books!  I would hate for them to go out of print.

[Susie in SWVA]

We loved those books!  I am glad to hear that others do to.  So many people have never heard of them.  I found a collection of Russian Tales that was edited by Arthur Ransome and bought it for my grandson for Christmas.

 

[Muttichen]

By the way -- I read that three of the books, (definitely Peter Duck and Missee Lee, maybe Great Northern? is the third?) are a story within the story.  That is, a story the characters made up.  In Swallowdale,  Titty talks about Peter Duck and "the stories we made up last winter." And -- if Nancy was captured by pirates, what's the worst way they could torture her?  Could walking the plank be worse than having to learn Latin, which Roger is better at than you? Missee Lee make more sense when you think of it that way!

[milovany]

We loved those books!  I am glad to hear that others do to.  So many people have never heard of them.  I found a collection of Russian Tales that was edited by Arthur Ransome and bought it for my grandson for Christmas.

 

I purchased that, too.  You might want to preview it!  The stories are a little scary and horrid for a very young child.  I know that a lot of fairytales are but these seemed sometimes especially so.  And one young girl is called a s*lut by an adult!  I think the meaning obviously must be a little different, but it was a little shocking when I was reading aloud to come across this word suddenly. 

 

[Susie in SWVA]

Thank you for the warning.  I will tell my daughter (and son-in-law) to  tread carefully when they are reading it to Jack.  He is almost 8 and is not particularly sheltered, but is sensitive to some things.

 

[Susan in TN]

We loved Swallows and Amazons, but I've never read others - we will definitely check them out!

 

The Melandy Quartet was my favorite book as a child. I still remember where I could always find it in my elementary school's library. It was one huge pink hardcover volume.