The Big Six

Second of the Swallows and Amazons stories to be set on the Norfolk Broads, and a sequel to Coot club. Dick and Dot have been back to the Lake District for the summer holidays (see Pigeon Post), but now it's September and they are in Norfolk again. And none too soon, as there's been an outbreak of night-time casting off of boats, and the crew of the Death And Glory are under suspicion. Time for the D’s to put their heads together with the Coots’ and try to detect the real culprits.
The result is a possibly bit feeble if you see it purely as a detective story: most readers will have a pretty shrewd suspicion who is responsible well before the detectives get to work. And there's not as much actual sailing as in some of the other show more stories. But it's still an engaging tale, with lots of Norfolk detail in the margins, and it gives Ransome an opportunity to bring the three Death-and-Glories - Bill, Joe and “that Pete” - to life, something he does very well. show less

1940. Another tale of the Norfolk Broads featuring Dick and Dorothea and the rest of the gang from The Coot Club. Someone is framing the Death and Glories for crimes they didn’t commit. I was irritated by how quickly everyone turned against them. If real evidence hadn’t shown up in time, they probably would have been hung at the gallows. But it all turns out all right finally. And they caught a giant pike too.

More a tale of detection, with sailing background, this is the least "stand alone" of Arthur Ransome's sailing stories. Read it as a child for the adventure, read it as an adult and realise the subtleties of the plot - the youngest, least socially sophisicated members of the Coot Club are being framed for vandalism and theft in a plot to get them off the river and stop their bird protection activities. It is the D's non-sailing interests (Dorothea's imagination and knowledge of detective fiction and Dick's scientific rationalism and skill with photography) that come to the fore and enable the real perpetrators to be exposed. One for the afficianodos.

To an old experienced reader it's all too obvious from the beginning who's doing all the nasty things, but if one allows for the fact that the book was meant primarily for children, this can't spoil his pleasure from reading it. In fact of the four Ransome books I've read so far I enjoyed only this one as much as the very first in the series. (Perhaps partly, but only partly, because of the unusual boys/girls ratio, and the absence of Nancy.)

Growing up the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome was one of my favorite series. When I decided to re-read it as an adult I was worried that it would not stand the test of time. I was delighted to find that in general found it just as enjoyable now as I did as a child. The characters, writing style and adventures are great and I truly enjoyed the series.

My favorite of the Swallows and Amazons books, strictly a Coot Club book, the subseries involving adventures with boats on the Norfolk Broads. I liked this one because it was a genuine mystery --three boys in the group are accused of setting boats adrift, but they are actually being framed, and prove it with genuine evidence including fingerprints and photography.

The 2nd in a sub-series involving Coot Club, this one was very exciting. We read it aloud as a family (two grandparents, two parents, 1 five-year old) and at times were on the edge of our seats!