Posted by John Lambert on August 22, 2008 at 21:18:30 user John.
In Reply to: Re: Favorite Scenes posted by Owen Roberts on August 22, 2008 at 16:34:37:
It's hard to find a favourite scene, but if asked, I would probably choose all of Chapter One of SA. In a few masterful sentences, AR lays the groundwork for all the books to come. Perhaps we can view the Walkers preparation for sailing to the island as AR's preparation for the future books. Here he provides the ethos of the works: His elder brother had said only that morning that steamships were just engines in tin boxes. Sail was the thing. . .And again, And on the lake they had seen the island. All four of them had been filled at once with the same idea. It was not just an island. It wasthe island, waiting for them. It was their island. The island and sailing provide the axis for the stories around which everything else revolves. No matter how far they may travel from that lake in the north, no matter what adventures they have, these two themes are always present in some form or other. While on this subject, I might as well offer a thought about why AR's stories have their perennial fascination. More than most writers of children's books, he has the gift of entering into the mind of childhood, knowing exactly what they feel, what they think and what they love.