Book review: “Arthur Ransome and Captain Flint’s Trunk”

Arthur Ransome & Captain Flint’s Trunk by Christina Hardyment

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ve probably read all of the Swallows and Amazons books in my time.

Although it’s not possible to confirm EXACTLY how many I’ve read, as we didn’t have anything like GoodReads back then. I wish we had have had, because this review would have been a whole lot better!

The books contained fantastic but attainable, outdoor adventuring by posher kids, who were around my own age when I read them… A Very Long Time Ago.

These children just messed about in boats on the river (in lakes, on the Norfolk Broads and in the sea) all day long. In fact it was surprising they didn’t slowly rust to a complete standstill by the time the stories had been completed by Mr. Ransome.

Prompted by this book I started reading “Swallows and Amazons” again, but gave up on it as it seemed I had now grown up.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but if I hadn’t got the Swallows and Amazons’ background I mightn’t have savoured it quite so much. If you have got that back-story, you’ll love this.

There maybe a school of thought which says reading about the real places (Lakeland islands, Norfolk Broads, inlets, islands, farms and houses) which Ransome used in his plots but renamed, and reading about Ms Hardyment’s meetings with relatives of the real people he based his story characters on, could take away from the readers’ imagination. But actually for me it was quite fascinating to read about their origins and the way in which Arthur Ransome developed this wonderful world I used to run away to.

If you enjoyed this, why not read my post about BorrowBox here.