Posted by Sinead on September 27, 1998 at 10:54:57:
Hello there. Great to find some Arthur Ransome discussion going on. It's hard to say what my favourite of the books is, the only thing I'm pretty certain of in ranking the books is that We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea would come in in last place for me. There's just something about it which doesn't seem quite real or believable, even less so to me than Missee Lee and Great Northern which are often accused of being mere fantasy. Perhaps I'm not a purist but I definitely rank Coot Club and The Big Six very highly. It's an impossible task to rank the books I know because there are so many great moments in all of them. Often it's the small touches which make particular passages from the books stick in your mind. For me some of the finest touches are the message on the arrow shot from the motor boat by the Amazons in Swallowdale and also the sight of the Great Aunt trundling past on the road and sighted by the Swallows lying low in the same book; also the "No Go" message mowed into the lawn in the Picts and the Martyrs is a particular favourite. These are the touches that just bring the books alive.