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Secret Water (Swallows And Amazons Book 8) by [Arthur Ransome]

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Arthur Ransome

Secret Water (Swallows And Amazons Book 8) Kindle Edition

by Arthur Ransome (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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John, Susan, Titty and Roger, the crew of the Swallow, take on the job of mapping the mass of small islands round Pin Mill while living on the biggest one. But who are the mysterious savages who lurk in the islands - and is the tribal totem they find in their campsite a threat of attack. ?

Length: 450 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Page Flip: Enabled	Language: English	Age Level: 9 - 11

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Review

"A magnificent exploring adventure" (Times Literary Supplement) --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Arthur Ransome was born in 1884. 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 of England with his Russian wife where, in 1929, he wrote Swallows and Amazons. Thus began a writing career that has produced some of the best children s literature of all time. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

ASIN : B0057WTEVW
Publisher : RHCP Digital; New Ed edition (30 June 2011)
Language: : English
File size : 4735 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 450 pages

Best Sellers Rank: 246,958 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 368 in Children's Classic Literature
- 1,285 in Classics for Children

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101 ratings

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antony brian blake

Unforgettable — a children's classic from a favorite author.

Reviewed in Australia on 25 September 2020

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Like all Ransome's stories, it's beautifully written, the children in it have distinct and appealing characters, and their adventures are really believable. Hard to put down — for grown-ups as well as kids!

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Amazon Customer

Old, but still good.

Reviewed in Australia on 21 November 2015

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My favourite of this old series. There are jarring notes for modern readers, but much of this story of children adventuring alone is timeless.

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Gael

Rather tedious meandering around muddy channels

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 June 2020

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I have been raiding my daughter's bookcase during the Lockdown and came across this. I have loved all the Arthur Ransome books since I was child, but could not remember this (strange it was an old copy of mine I was reading). I can only assume that I gave up on it quite early in the book. I have however plodded on with it to about two thirds through and it is becoming an increasing struggle. Maybe it is because I am an adult now, but I have enjoyed all the others.

This story however just rambles on and on about maps and waterways and has fairly dreary character development including one boy (the Mastodon - the overuse of the name is just irritating in itself) who seems overly serious and sulky, and another trio who are fairly one dimensional. Even the main characters lack any charisma and Ransome appears to rely on their stock catchwords and phrases to lend vivacity to their personalities.

It almost seemed as if Ransome was in a particularly bad mood when he wrote this; it is heavy, humourless and dull. The characters seem as bored being there as I was reading about it.

I gave it three stars for the first chapter which captured the parents' need to be elsewhere rather energetically and eloquently. Also the use of the word 'damn' which must have been outrageous in a children's book written in the 1930s, and Roger's reaction to the First Lord of the Admiralty. There almost seems a touch of a personal view uttered in those two sentences.

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David O

the fit is perfect. If you crank up the magnification you will ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 November 2014

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Secret Water,
Maps, mud and eels, and a human sacrifice
(Some of the general comments I made about Ransome and the Swallows and Amazons series in my review of Winter Holiday may also be of interest.)
To get the full flavour of the book go to Google Maps UK, type in Hamford Water, switch to Google Earth, and compare what you see with the completed map in Secret Water. Allowing for 75+ years of change in the coastal regions of Essex, the fit is perfect. If you crank up the magnification you will even see names that ought to have been adopted by Ransome, like the Dardanelles and the Twizzle, and one that almost was, Peewit Island has become Peewitland.
This is another excellent example of the value of absent parents. Just before a planned family holiday Commander Walker (who is rarely even in the country!) is summoned to London, so dumps the children plus a dinghy in an area of tidal salt marshes and low islands on the Essex coast, and suggests they survey and map the area. Given the overwhelming respect, almost veneration, that the Swallows have for both parents, they naturally fall to with enthusiasm. Fortunately the surveying process is enlivened then interrupted first by the unexpected arrival of their dearest friends, and then by a new band of outlaws known as the Eels. Adventures ensue, as they will. But keep your eye on the map, which in my second-hand hardback version is conveniently printed inside the front and back covers over a double page and with coloured route lines. Also keep an eye on the latest addition to the Swallows, Bridget.
In this book Ransome introduces four new characters, and promotes the ‘ship’s baby’, Bridget, to junior but active membership of the Swallows. This is the second time that we get twins (the first was in Coot Club, in which all the characters were new except Dick and Dorothea, whom we met in Winter Holiday), but this time the author seems to make even less attempt to distinguish between them, and I confess I gave up. But the leader, thanks to his original ‘home’ and his ‘splatchers’ is very clearly drawn. All of them, naturally, are excellent sailors and possess quite as much imagination as the Swallows.
Many elements are common to the earlier books, though set in a totally new environment, which is expertly and fully evoked, as it always is with Ransome, from personal experience. The children’s relations with adults, the ‘natives’, are as guarded as ever, though they do need the help of a craftsman at one point – plus, of course, the inevitable and frequent calls upon a local farmer’s wife for milk. The technical detail this time has less to do with sailing than with mapping, but the action of the tides on their temporary world of salt marshes and low-lying islands is of prime importance. In fact the tides dictate much of their scope for action, and prove to be life-threatening on one occasion.
The characters of the Swallows and Amazons run true to form, and now that Susan has a new ‘baby’ to look after she is even more maternal and ‘native’ than ever. John, as always, is preoccupied with what he ought to be doing, what his father in particular would want and expect him to do, which sometimes conflicts with his sense of adventure. Titty is still the one with bags of curiosity and imagination, and Roger thinks mostly about food. We are never told how old the children are, which is inevitable since the stories involve the same children published over a span of 17 years. But Bridget has now become ‘old enough’, as she often reminds the others, to camp with her siblings and share their adventures – she’s even at the very centre of the culmination of the inevitable ‘war’ between the Swallows and the rest.
There is enough that is familiar and enough that is new in Secret Water to satisfy established Ransome readers, but enjoyment does not depend on previous knowledge, it is an excellent book in its own right.

9 people found this helpful

richard

Secret Water

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 August 2020

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I last read these wonderful tales by Arthur Ransome over 65 years ago but of an age when children could camp on their own on an island on Conniston, explore, mine for gold, sail, enjoy everything nobody nowadays could begin to understand. I've truly loved re-reading these books, of a time nobody younger could understand. Thank you. Absolutely splendid !

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Not a Favourite

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 August 2019

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The Swallows & Amazon’s are back together on an archipelago with instructions to map it. Several new characters make their one-off appearance- the Eels! There are a lot of elaborate and fanciful elements in this story which I find tiresome. Bridget - ship’s baby no longer - is unconvincing and the pace is often slow. Not my favourite book.

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David Evans

Restoring childhood memories

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 December 2013

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Lovely book to read again. This famous author enlightened the eyes of many young readers, including me. I almost learned to sail a dinghy on dry land from reading his books! Since then, I became a sailor of small boats and always had in my head the guidance and instructions in the books of Arther Ransome. As a result of re-reading Secret Water, I've been back to Walton backwaters and also to Pin Mill.

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