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Swallows and Amazons August 2025 Spoilers thread
By Carol She's S… , She's a mod, yeah, yeah, yeah! · 17 posts · 15 views
By Carol She's S… , She's a mod, yeah, yeah, yeah! · 17 posts · 15 views
last updated Aug 13, 2025 11:08PM
What Members Thought

This is a superficially simple tale about four siblings spending a week camping on a small island. They meet two local sisters and play pirates with them. I'm sure if I had read it as a child myself I would have loved the concept. As an adult I found it a little hard to get into at first. Not much happens actionwise in the first half of the book. The kids set up camp and we get a lot of useful information about boating. However, as the days pass and the characters' personalities became more deve
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Better drowned than duffers; if not duffers, won't drown...
In this first book of the series, the Walker children's father gives permission for them to spend the summer camping out and sailing in the Lake District of England. They expect to spend their time exploring, making maps, improving their sailing skills - and do not expect pirates or rivalry from others on the lake!
I recently tried to read this aloud to my nephew. I found that really did not work because there was too much nature and sail ...more
In this first book of the series, the Walker children's father gives permission for them to spend the summer camping out and sailing in the Lake District of England. They expect to spend their time exploring, making maps, improving their sailing skills - and do not expect pirates or rivalry from others on the lake!
I recently tried to read this aloud to my nephew. I found that really did not work because there was too much nature and sail ...more

I will have to think about this book, which I enjoyed despite some slight irritation on all the sailing details which I didn't always understand. I do think this is an excellent way for children to be raised - outside with only distant supervision - and am sure these children grew up to do amazing things as adults, but at the same time I maybe wanted a little more info about their lives when not on vacation.
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I can definitely understand why it's a classic and so beloved by so many. I think if I had read it as a kid I would have been allllllll about it. As an adult, I still really liked it but I also thought, "Um, this is a LOT of sailing, eh?"
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May 23, 2013
Cindy
marked it as to-read


Jul 31, 2014
Carolien
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Nov 21, 2014
Ashley Nichols
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Jan 10, 2017
Nao
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Apr 05, 2017
Sankara Jayanth S
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Jan 19, 2018
Sunshine
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Oct 19, 2018
Michelle
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Dec 27, 2020
Kathryn Guare
rated it
it was amazing
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review of another edition
Shelves:
riveting-retro,
childrens-corner

Feb 20, 2022
Karigan
marked it as to-read

Mar 30, 2022
Caroline
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Jun 20, 2025
CindySR
marked it as to-read