Finally! Here is the twelfth, and final, book in Arthur Ransome's acclaimed Swallows and Amazons series. People familiar with his earlier work will recognize the pattern: children set out on an adventure (this one off the coast of Scotland) with a minimum of parental advice and interference. Here, the story centers on a desperate race to thwart the efforts of pernicious egg collectors threatening the survival of a pair of rare birds not previously known to nest in British waters (actually, the bird is the handsome North American "Great Northern Diver," more commonly called a loon).
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More About the Author
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.
Photography (c) Arthur Ransome's Literary Executors & courtesy of the Brotherton Collection, Leeds University Library
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.
Photography (c) Arthur Ransome's Literary Executors & courtesy of the Brotherton Collection, Leeds University Library
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb,
By A Customer
This review is from: Great Northern?: A Scottish Adventure of Swallows & Amazons (Paperback)
This book from the 1930s or 40s starts with a group of kids sailing in the Hebrides with Uncle Jim -- the uncle of two of them -- at the end of their cruise. They stop to spend a day taking care of the borrowed boat -- cleaning the bottom and putting on a new coat of bottom paint -- and while the older ones are doing this, the younger ones explore. One of them goes birdwatching, and sees something unusual. Sounds pretty dull, right? Wrong. Like all the Ransome (non-fantasy) books, the bad-guy in this book -- an egg-collector -- is completely plausible AND horrible. The multiple story lines are all intriguing. The respect for decent behavior (cleaning the bottom of someone else's boat? Making sure to bury a bit of waxed paper from your sandwich...in 1935??? Respecting property ... not disturbing wildlife ... Passing behind a sailboat when you're in a faster motorboat...) isn't drilled in with a ham-handed holier-than-thou-ness; it's just part of what you get when you read the book. You also get a terrific adventure, a fingernail-biting crisis and denoument (remember when denoument was part of a good story?), humor, character, and a feeling of the Hebrides that you just don't forget. If your kids don't like this book, keep the book and throw the kids in the trash.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A bittersweet finale to the series,
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This review is from: Great Northern?: A Scottish Adventure of Swallows & Amazons (Paperback)
The Swallows, the Amazons, and the D's are all sailing in the Scottish isles when Dick Callum makes a fairly significant discovery...a Great Northern Diver (known in the US as the common loon) is actually nesting in the British Isles, where they're not known to nest. Dick turns to another bird person who operates another boat, only to find that this fellow is an egg-collector who seeks to kill the birds and raid the nest. Thus follows an exciting adventure across the Highlands, with plots, counterplots, and a spanner thrown in the works by locals who fear the crew are deer-poachers.This novel is a fun adventure and also a look at a shift in views toward naturalism. We have the old-school naturalist in the form of the egg-collector, and the new school in the form of Dick, who seeks only to observe and document and leave the birds alone. A strong environmental message permeates this book, set in 1934 and written in 1947. Egg-collecting (oology) was banned in England not long after this was published, and is also now illegal in the US. (There is debate among series fans if this is a "fantasy" entry like PETER DUCK or MISSEE LEE, or a "real" entry like the rest; I opt for the latter.) And while it's a good send-off for the characters, it was not meant as such. Ransome had another adventure in the works, COOTS IN THE NORTH, that was unfinished and the fragments have been published in an anthology, now sadly out of print. Ransome was convinced into letting the series lapse, which is a tragedy, but readers can let themselves imagine where the series could have led from here.
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