Since Michigan summers are so marvelous, it is hard to bring the children inside to read. Something about the long light-filled evenings make me reluctant to do anything but go for long walks, play another game of back-yard soccer, or give in to the pleadings for "just one more" run through the sprinkler. By the time everyone is ready for bed, it's ten o'clock. Because this is Michigan, however, we do have the rainy summer days, when we can't be outside, and it is nice to have something to distract.
Two years ago, the final read-aloud in our Tapestry plan was the first in the "Swallows and Amazons" series by Arthur Ransome. In all my reading as a child, I do not know how I missed this series. It has all the characteristics of some of my other favorite series-delightful, sibling characters (a mystery to this only child), independent adventures with adults only peeking in for safety and emergencies, and, of course, set in Britain, that exotic and enigmatic island. Most importantly, Ransome eventually wrote twelve books about the Walker children and their adventures. Oh the bliss in knowing, at the end of a good story, that more tales await in another volume.
In the first book, Swallows and Amazons, from which the series takes its name, the Walkers are staying in the Lakes District of northern England (geography lesson alert-complete with available pictures from associated Wikipedia articles). Their father is in the navy, so their mother and nurse are left with attempting to keep 5 children, body and soul together. The children are accomplished sailors and take to the lake on the small sailboat that belongs to the farm at which they are staying. Leaving behind their youngest sister in the care of Nurse, the four older siblings declare themselves explorers, naming locations around the lake after far-off locales-Rio, Amazon, etc. After locating a particularly inhabitable island, they receive permission to camp there for a week at the end of their holiday. Adding to their adventures is the discovery that someone(s) has been on the island before. Thus enter the "Amazons" also known as Peggy and Nancy Blackett who live on a farm on the opposite shore.
The books appeal to the imagination without going into such detail that they lose the reader (or listener). The chapters are long, often requiring a break between evenings, causing much complaining from my audience. As a mother of five, I appreciated the sibling relationships. It was realistic, with the normal teasing and slight bickering. It was, however, also refreshing to see how each child filled a role according to his or her strengths, rather than competing for roles within the crew. The adventures are just enough to keep you reading, without thinking "that couldn't really happen." (Well, except for the night Titty spend in a dinghy on the open lake...but you'll have to read the book to find out what happens.)
If your children have enjoyed the Boxcar children, this is a perfect follow-up series.
