I would have never read this book if I wasn't reading through this BBC list from 2003 and, to be honest, I wasn't looking forward to this volume and was very ready to DNF. An adventure novel from the 1930s? I was ready for sexism and racism and having to excuse it all because of history.

I was pleasantly surprised.

This is a book where the adventurers are boys and girls of a mix of ages, the girls are motherly and the boys aren't insensitive. And, despite being published in the 1930s, there is a level of sensitivity in discussions surrounding "natives" and "savages" - albeit nobody's favourite choice of word.

John, Susan, Titty, and Roger are the children sea Captain spending their summer holidays in the Lake District with their mother, baby sister Vicky and Vicky's nurse. For a couple of weeks in the summer, the children are allowed to sail out on a boat their father made for them and camp out on a small island in the lakes. They soon make friends with two sisters who are also sailor-in-making (pirates really) and get caught up in a grand adventure involving thieves and treasure and the like.

In my review of The Night Circus, I said it was an escapist novel and this novel also offered its own form of escapism. It transported me to a somewhat idyllic time in which children could go camping by themselves and all the adults in the community would band together to take care of their well-being. I appreciated that although Susan turned motherly when she needed to (making sure everyone was fed and warm) she was just as wild as the other children. Girls who can hang with the boys and still be girly. Yup, I know a few girls like that. And how John, the oldest boy, gets a lump in his throat and has to go be by himself when a grownup unfairly accuses him of being a liar. I loved that the majority of the adventuring children were girls and I especially the children's mother who just as knowledgable about sailing and the outdoors and as able to guide them in their adventuring as their father.

Definitely, one I'll be recommending to my nephews and niece.