Swallowdale (Swallows and Amazons)

A summer of adventure with the Swallows and Amazons. The Walker and Blackett children survive a shipwreck, discover a secret valley and cave, and go on a thrilling mountain hike.

On summer holiday, the Swallows (John, Susan, Titty and Roger Walker) and the Amazons (Nancy and Peggy Blackett) meet up on Wild Cat Island. Unfortunately, though, the Amazons have a problem: their Great Aunt Maria has come to visit and she demands that the Amazon pirates act like “young ladies.” Things get worse when the Swallows discover a very high hill that just begs to be climbed...

How the Amazons escape the Great Aunt, arrange a rendezvous, and mount an expedition to sleep under the stars on the summit makes a very exciting and satisfying story.

Friendship, resourcefulness, and sailing, too: Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series has stood the test of time. More than just great stories, each one celebrates independence and initiative with a colorful, large cast of characters. Swallowdale (originally published in 1931) is the second title in the Swallows and Amazons series, books for children or grownups, anyone captivated by a world of adventure and imagination.

Arthur Ransome spent his childhood in England’s Lake District, and after a career in journalism that took him to Russia (where he married Trostsky’s secretary), China, and Egypt (interspersed with summers of cruising through the Baltic Sea and the canals of Europe), he retired to Coniston where he could practice his favorite pastimes of sailing and fishing and where he wrote the Swallows and Amazons series.