PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Arthur Ransome was born in Leeds in 1884 and went to school at Rugby. He was in Russia in 1917, and witnessed the Revolution, which he reported for the Manchester Guardian. After escaping to Scandinavia, he settled in the Lake District with his Russian wife where, in 1929, he wrote Swallows and Amazons. And so began a writing career which has produced some of the real children's treasures of all time. In 1936 he won the first ever Carnegie Medal for his book, Pigeon Post. Ransome died in 1967. He and his wife Evgenia lie buried in the churchyard of St Paul's Church, Rusland, in the southern Lake District.
Probably we are unduly partial to Ransome, but it seems to us that he is consistently tops in his stories of children and boats - and this is good Ransome. The same Walker tribe - John, Susan, Roger and Titty, are the central figures, and an unpredictable accident sets them adrift, in a new friend's outter, and against odds of storm and fog, cross the North Sea to Holland. There's more than due quota of nautical terminology, so it is ideal for the budding skippers. (Kirkus Reviews)
