Whether the series has in fact succeeded firstly in engaging young readers and secondly in leading them back to Ransome I have no evidence. In Julia’s case the hidden Ransome references (not all that hidden) are an added pleasure for adult AR-familiar readers.

This might be much as Ransome would have led his readers back to Stevenson etc, though they perhaps didn’t need as much leading. The presence of the Ransome references was an additional benefit – a sort of puzzle which those who wanted to could explore, with the reward of discovering the Swallows and Amazons series. The reason I admire Julia’s books is because, at an early stage, I could see that they deliberately set out to explore dilemmas, conflicts, situations etc that present-day children could recognise and engage with. I suspect I’m going to have to get round to repairing the omission in respect of the titles/authors Julia covers.īut back to who reads them. (I’ve looked at some fanfic and found it enjoyable in its way, which means only if one suspends the usual standards and expectations of literature, ie I expect it was more enjoyable to write than read). On the subject of who reads these books, I can only speak about Julia’s own books, having avoided the task of investigating the others for fear of disappointment. All of us attempt this in our books but, speaking for myself, I found it almost impossible to achieve without introducing an awkward self-consciousness, a mannered quality, a lack of pace and grip.

His children remake and re-experience their world both through their practical engagement with it as well as their imaginative approach to mapping and re naming it. Ransome was extraordinarily clever at allowing happenings that are often intrinsically smallish, to be mediated through his children's consciousness until they become convincingly large to the reader as well as to the fictional characters. We have an inalienable commitment to the challenges of the natural world and cannot remove our characters to the realms of magic. Ransome writers have a delicate balance to strikeīetween realism and imagination.

The righting of injustice and recovery of lost inheritance – safeĮnough for any generation, you might think, though we School of Of us follow in the adventure mould – rescues, treasure hunts,

Brambleholme Summer by Duncan Hall