LoveReading4Kids Says
February 2011 Guest Editor Tim Bowler has chosen this book for the enduring appeal of Arthur Ransome adventures:
"I loved all the Swallows and Amazons books as a boy. Ransome's genius is that he doesn't just give you the children's adventures but their fantasy adventures as well. You sail in their boats but you also become the pirates and explorers they pretend to be. We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea is different, however. Here there is no make-believe, just raw drama. The children find themselves in a sailing boat being driven out to sea by a furious storm. The depiction of the storm and the children's struggle to survive contains some of Ransome's finest writing."
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About Arthur Ransome
Arthur Ransome was born on January 18, 1884, in Leeds, where his father was a Professor of History. His father was a lover of the hills and lakes of Furness, and carried the baby Arthur up to the top of Coniston Old Man (later to become 'Kanchenjunga' in the books) when he was only a few weeks old. Every summer, he took his family by train to Greenodd, complete with their belongings packed into a large tin bath, and then by cart along the valley to Lowick and, finally, to Nibthwaite, on the shores of Coniston Water.
It was to be a long time before the memories came to life in Swallows and Amazons and the rest of the books about the children who sailed and explored the lakes and mountains of England. Always fired by ambition to be a writer, Arthur Ransome took his first job with a London publisher and then with the famous newspaper, the Manchester Guardian, for whom he worked for many years as a foreign correspondent.
As a young man, Ransome spent many more happy holidays on the shores of Coniston with his friends the Collingwood family. Mr and Mrs Collingwood treated Arthur as a son and he pays them grateful recognition in his autobiography by saying 'My whole life has been happier for knowing them'. He spent hours on Peel Island, which was to become famous all over the world as Wildcat Island, picnicking there with the Collingwood daughters Dora and Barbara.
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