Review by Margot Story

Is Captain Flint an ally, or an enemy? Over Spring Break I read the book Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. The Swallows and Amazons series consists of twelve books. Swallows and Amazons was written in 1930, and the rest of the books were written in a pattern: 1931, 1932, 1933 etc. It is also a British book, which changes some of the language. The main characters are the four Walker siblings and the two Blackett sisters. The Walker siblings are: John Walker (the eldest), Susan Walker, Titty Walker, and Roger (the youngest). They also have a baby sister Vicky, who is mentioned throughout the book. The two Blackett (usually mentioned as “Amazon”) sisters are: Ruth Blackett (though her pirate name is Nancy, and that is her name throughout the book – She changed her name after her Uncle Jim said that pirates were “ruthless”.), and Peggy Blackett. It is set in the Lake District in England, though some of the later books are set in other places. The four Walker siblings convince their mother to let them go on an adventure while on summer vacation. They consider themselves explorers, while the Amazon sisters consider themselves pirates.  They meet the Amazon sisters and they form an alliance. Then they get into a whole series of events which included the Amazons and the Amazon’s Uncle Jim, who they refer to as Captain Flint.

I am going to describe Titty because I feel that she is the most interesting. Titty is independent, brave, and curious. She is independent and brave because she stole the Amazon during one of the events that happened in the book. She also volunteered to stay alone on the big island at night, with absolutely no contact with her sister and brothers. She is curious because when she was alone she thought that some pirates were burying treasure on the island, and to have proof when her sister doubted her, she actually went to the spot and dug around. She also was very curious about Captain Flint at first, and decided to try and find out things she was curious about throughout the entire book. She has a big imagination because she thinks that Captain Flint is a retired pirate, and also she loves role-play. Whenever she role-plays she is Robinson Crusoe, and she pretends that her mother is Man Friday, two explorers from a very famous old book a little similar to Swallows and Amazons.

One of the most interesting (to me) parts of the book is when the Swallows see Captain Flint waving his fist at them. It is a minor point in the book, but I find it interesting because they have absolutely no idea what he is waving his fist about, yet later in the book when John goes to visit Captain Flint it is made known that Captain Flint believed that the Swallows lit his houseboat on fire. While the visit seems more interesting, I think that the fist waving is more important. It starts the relationship between the Swallows and Captain Flint, which is needed to start the series of events in the books that makes Swallows and Amazons one of the most interesting and pleasurable to read.

As you can probably tell already, I really love this book. I do think, though, it is a VERY difficult book to read, as the vocabulary is very advanced, using phrases like “make fast”, and using the word “native” as an offensive term. These are some outdated old British sayings which makes it hard to read, but if you use the context and read it over and over you can probably figure out what the words mean (with the help of Google), and then you can really enjoy the book.. I wouldn’t recommend this book for younger children, because of the vocabulary issue, and because it is such a long book I think they may find it draining to read. I think that if you want to try to read this book, go for it! It may be tricky at first but it’s a very enjoyable book to read. I am actually on my sixth time reading it, so get reading, you fo’c’sle crew!
My rating for this book is: Five stars! It was so fun to read. And I just loved the storyline!