No.99 - Swallows and Amazons

When I first voiced the idea for this blog it was agreed that if I had already read any books on the list I had to read them again or I wouldn't be doing it properly. That said I realised that I was going to have to re-read Swallows and Amazons even though I had only read it last year! It was one of the set books on the Children's Literature module of my degree, and I'll admit to having rushed the reading the first time around to get it read in time for writing an essay. This time, despite my reluctance to re-read this classic tale it wasn't actually that bad! 

Originally published in 1930, this children's adventure tale is very much of its time. It is littered with phrases such as 'Hallo!' and 'I say!', and the Walker family are very clearly middle class. It's an example of the popular interwar genre of the holiday adventure story, a genre that provided an idyllic and rather romanticised view of childhood; an escape. The story is set in the Lake District and follows the adventures of the Walker children on their summer holiday. John, Susan, Titty (no sniggering please...) and Roger take their little sailing boat Swallow out across the lake to a small uninhabited island where they set up camp and stay for a while. This is all well and good but their mother seems totally unperturbed by the fact that her children, whose ages range from probably around 12 to 7 are completely alone on a small island fending for themselves night and day! Despite this the children actually cope very well on the island, relishing the time spent away from the 'natives' on the main land. Here they meet a band of pirates, the Amazons, and together have jolly adventures on the high seas! 

Swallows and Amazons has rather a quaint story line and a nice assortment of characters, some very loveable and some rather stereotypical. My favourite character by far is little Roger, the youngest and the ship's boy. The book begins with him pretending to be a sailing boat, tacking up the hill to the farmhouse, totally committed to being a ship and loving it! From this point onwards I had quite the soft spot for him and his outlook on life. Titty, which I think is short for Letitia, has a wonderfully romanticised view of their adventure, pretending a lot of the time that she is in an adventure novel of her own. When left alone on the island she pretends she is Robinson Crusoe and when mother visits she christens her Man Friday. Defoe's classic is referred to quite often in the story, along with Stephenson's Treasure Island (coincidently that's no.50 on the list). As you can see the two youngest Walkers are quite individual, the problem, I feel, arises when we consider Susan and John. Susan, although cast as the ship's mate in the adventure, unfortunately falls foul to all the domestic tasks, doing all the cooking, cleaning, sewing, and mothering whilst they are on the island.  She is absolutely the mother figure, telling the crew when to go to bed, to keep warm and worrying about what she is going to feed them everyday. I felt quite sorry for Susan, but then this portrayal of girls was not unusual in those days. Parents liked their children read books that had characters that would be good role models for them, and I think this is the case with the characters of Susan and John. He is the father to Susan's mother, concerned totally with the fate of his boat and his crew, and constantly trying to live up his father's role as a navy man. Despite having read this book twice now I am still in the dark as to which way is port and which is starboard, and I have no idea what a boom or a painter is. And Ransome makes that no clearer! If you, like me, have no idea about sailing terminology then you will be lost by the huge amount of references included in this book. As a child I think this would have really put me off, as its really quite technical. However, if you can get past that then the story really gallops along.

About a quarter of the way into the book we meet the Amazon pirates, Nancy and Peggy Blackett. They are around the same age as the Swallows and live just up the river from the lake. They too have a little sailing boat, named Amazon. Nancy's real name is Ruth, but as Ransom tells us pirates are supposed to be Ruth-less, so of course she had to change her name! They makes friends but also agree to have a war; of course, why wouldn't you! This entails a longwinded but rather exciting adventure in the dark, in which Amazon is captured by the cast away Titty and everyone stays up all night! After this there is another war with a retired pirate who lives on a houseboat, a case of burglary, hidden treasure, a huge and rather devastating storm, shark steaks for tea, a gift of a real parrot, and the threat of a monkey too!

The story is really rather fun, but what makes this book even more charming are the illustrations. Drawn by Ransome himself, because he didn't think anyone else would do a good enough job, these simple little line drawings capture a real sense of the story. Below is a lovely drawing of Titty and Roger having a swim!

Also there is a fantastic map in the front of the book, which everyone knows is the sign of a good book! It shows the lake and the islands, all of which were named by the children. In the story the map is drawn up by John as the ship's chart, complete with giant whale, a pirate ship, wind-blowing lady, settlements and unexplored territory. It's certainly the stuff of pirate stories!

All in all, I enjoyed my re-reading of Swallows and Amazons. It's a classic and should be read by everyone at some point in their lives, especially if you enjoy an adventure!

Thanks for reading, L x

Next up is a Goosebumps book! 

No.100 - The Adventures of Tintin

              

I'll admit to never having read a Tintin book, seen the animated series or watched the fairly recent film adaptation, so I was intrigued to read a Tintin story. Having tried to track down the earliest Tintin book Tintin in the land of the Soviets in the Cornwall library system and drawing a blank, I settled for the earliest one I could find, Tintin in America, published in 1932 and it was brilliant!

Not knowing anything about Herge's creation, apart from what he looked like, and of course that he had a faithful pooch sidekick called Snowy, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the story was written in a comic book style! The cute and simply drawn characters of Tintin and Snowy raced across the frames and kept the pace of the story quick and exciting. I was an avid reader of the Beano as a child so it was rather nostalgic to return to the visual world of the comic. 

Written in the 1930s, this story was not awash with political correctness as you can imagine, and stereotyping was the order of the day! During their adventure through America Tintin and Snowy encounter Italian American Mobsters, who all speak with cheesy Italian accents, wield guns, wear sharp suits and an assortment of different hats. He also meets a whole tribe of Red Indians or Native Americans as we'd say, who again speak in stereotypical stilted English, refer to Tintin as 'paleface' and have silly names like Big Chief Keen-Eyed-Mole, and Browsing Bison! To round off the stereotypes there is a Mexican bank robber towards the end of the book, again wih dialogue written in a cheesy Mexican accent and a huge sombrero. It's so bad, it's good! 

I would also like to comment on just how much Herge fits into this 62 page adventure! By the end of the first page Tintin and his little pal have been kidnapped by a very shifty looking milkman, and by page 10 he has escaped kidnap twice, been in 1 high speed police chase, 1 car crash, been to hospital, recovered, been knocked out twice, fallen through 1 trap door, caught a whole gang of gangsters, knocked out 2 others, brandished a pistol more than once, been chased by the police, lost Snowy and found him, received one trick phone call and climbed out of a top story hotel window! And the pace doesn't slow down!! In total there are 5 trapdoor falls in this story, and I'm not accusing Herge of recycling plots but there are 2 drowning attempts, 2 fights caused by Tintin in a bid to hos escape, snowy gets kidnapped twice, and there are 2 gangs of mobsters that Tintin must outwit, including Al Capone himself! 

However, despite these repetitions there are some truly brilliant moments in this book, like all the amazingly fortuitous means of escape for our hero! My favourite was when he gets mysteriously called to a tinned meat factory (it makes no sense in the progression of the story, and I'd have thought Tintin was more sensible than to accept a random and slightly suspicious invitation, but there you go!) and falls in a vat of minced beef, only to find that just as he falls the factory workers go on strike and the machines just happen to stop allowing him to get away without being minced to death! Another moment I enjoyed was the hanging debarcle, where Tintin and Snowy are both about to be strung up when the ropes break, how lucky I hear you cry, but how lucky for it to happen a second time as they try to hang them again! Our hero Tintin really does have luck on his side! 

Other points in the story reminded me of a silent movie, and one of thse suspense filled piano accompaniments would have suited to story down to the ground! The action was so fast paced and the situations so unbelievable that it was all a bit farcical really! At one point, and this was real silent movie stuff, Tintin is tied to some railway tracks and is saved from being squished by a train with inches to spare! 

There are so many fantastic situations in this story and I'd love to sit here and tell you every one but a) we'd be here for hours, and b) I'd hate to spoil it for you! It's a really fun book that keeps you gripped from start to finish, mainly because you never know what's going to happen to Tintin and Snowy next! It's fast paced and the characters are amusing, and with other titles such as Tintin - Destination Moon, and Tintin and the Secret of the Unicorn you can understand why they have been enjoyed by children of all ages for decades! 

Thanks for reading, L x

Next up Arthur Ransom's adventure classic Swallows and Amazons. 

A journey through 100 books begins with the first step....

So, over Christmas there were lots of good things on the tele, festive films, Christmas specials, the Queen's speech. But for me the must-watch program over the Christmas period was Channel 4's 'Britain's Favourite Children's Books'. Keen to see which of my favourite children's classics would make it onto the list  I settled down with a cup of tea at 6:30 on Boxing Day to watch David Walliams countdown the top 50 children's story favourites, as compiled by The Times. Starting with Robert Louis Stevenson's classic swashbuckling tale 'Treasure Island', the list did not disappoint. Featuring much loved tales such as 'The Wind in the Willows' and 'Alice in Wonderland', and favourites of my childhood, 'The Story of Tracy Beaker' and 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' I enjoyed revisiting books that sparked my love for reading. I was also intrigued by more modern additions to the list like Neil Gaiman's 'Fortunately, the Milk' and 'A Monster Calls' by Patrick Ness. The list was a nice mix of modern and classic literature, well known and less well known, and of this I was pleased.

If, like me, you are keen to see what Britain's top 3 children's books were you can watch the countdown here ! If you can't be bothered, then I shall tell you, and I hope you won't be disappointed! I certainly wasn't! 

There is nothing worse than watching a countdown of something and number one being a result you would never have picked! So half expecting no.1 to be something I would consider trash I crossed my fingers....

No.3..... 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'! Yes, good choice Britain! Though in hindsight I was surprised it hadn't ranked higher. 

No.2.... 'The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe'. Again, a good choice. I've never read it but it certainly deserves to be up the top. 

No.1...... 'Winnie the Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner'. Relief! My favourite bear of all time! 'Winnie the Pooh' was as much a part of my childhood as 'The Gruffalo' is for children these days. In fact the audiobook, read by Alan Bennett, was on a continuous loop most of the time! 

Afterwards I searched the list online and found that it was actually a list of 100 children's books considered national favourites. With the New Year fast approaching I rashly made the resolution to read them all! But unlike the resolutions you make to go to the gym or eat less cake, this one was going to be easy to keep (she says now.... Come back in a few weeks and we'll see.....!)

I love children's literature, it's my passion! I'm drudging through the last year of my degree with the hope to do an MA in children's literature afterwards, so the thought of reading all these books is keeping me sane! I'm looking forward to re-reading books that I've loved and creating new favourites along the way. I'll be writing my thoughts on each book here, so if you want to take the journey with me please come back soon. 

So, first up is no.100 'The Adventures of Tintin, Tintin in America'. 

For the whole list have a look here. 

XxX

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