77 books like Swallows and Amazons

All sorts of islands have been spotted from afar and printed on our maps, only to be revisited years later and found to be ephemeral or just plain delusions. This book is a historical survey of late nineteenth-century British and American attempts to verify islands and establish a final, accurate map of the world. It was an impossible task back then and it is even more challenging today, for islands are coming and going with increasing speed.

This fascinating little gem of a book is concerned with tiny, largely unknown islands scattered around the world. Schalansky essentially selected them largely for how far they are from big, continental lands. Even after spending a significant portion of my life at sea, I can only claim to have visited or even sailed within sight of about a dozen of them. Most of these small atolls are far from their mother countries. But each of these isolated islands has a story that is inextricably tied to the sea.

Wells is one of the great early masters of science fiction, creator of The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds, but with Moreau he was also one of the masters of what David Cronenberg fans know as body horror—the gross, startling, and menacing intermingling of the human body with exterior elements.

In this case, pumas, pigs, you name it. With characters like Ape-Man and Sloth-Man, there is a definitely campiness here, but never enough to distract from the fact that it’s deeply, resonantly disturbing.  

This book is the first story of the Southern Sea and the first true English novel. Full of sailing ships, stormy seas, symbolism, exotic desert islands, muskets, wild boars, and cannibals, it set the standard for every adventure story that followed. 

I love the narrative of a lone castaway—facing the ultimate tests of nature to triumph over hardship. Robinsonade, a new renegade literary genre, emerged in which the hero is suddenly isolated from the comforts of civilization, marooned on a secluded island, tropical, uninhabited, and uncharted. He must improvise to become self-sufficient from limited resources.

Like my own hero quest, solitary conflict was required for character development, and the solitude led back to society and survival, or the ordeal would have no meaning. 

Running away to live for a year alone in the woods–as a kid, I couldn’t have dreamed up a better fantasy.

Twelve-year-old protagonist Sam Gribley makes the dream feel realistic. Carving your own home in a huge hollow tree? Check. Learning how to set traps for fish and game? Check. Stitching your own clothes out of a deer hide “borrowed” from a reckless hunter who couldn’t find the carcass? Check. Learning the daily rhythms of wildlife, from chickadees to raccoons to stoats? Oh yes. I could have lived in Sam’s world forever.

Plus, the author’s line illustrations perfectly evoke an outdoor notebook worthy of a young Thoreau. It broke my heart when Sam’s year of wild freedom drew to a close.

This book touched many from my generation.

For me, Mary’s abandonment by the adults around her, came close to home. I rooted for her to free her soul. It was the beauty of the garden and the gentle robin that first melted the ice around her heart by connecting her with nature.

Then along came Dickon, who had grown up deeply connected with the earth and inspired her further, and finally Colin, who, like her, had been neglected. They healed each other as they revitalized the garden, experiencing the joys of mother earth.

It reinforced my own faith in mother nature, who also supported me whenever I grappled with my reality. 

To be truthful, I would list all the Moomin books as top of my list and am only choosing one because I can’t pick them all. In Moominvalley and its enduring characters, its seasons, snowstorms, comets, floods, and finally its absences, we find lifes’ psychological dramas, doubts, and triumphs perfectly embedded in and drawn from the tempestuous and consoling presence of the natural world. I read all these books to my daughter and relished the emergence of a conjured world that was deep and familiar, yet also distant and magical, as is whatever realm of nature you most find yourself close to. I remember Moompapa at sea for its particularly philosophical and slightly wistful tone and because who doesn’t wonder about the wildness and loneliness of life inside a lighthouse. 

I wanted to include a one book that could be enjoyed by kids of all ages and this was a no brainer.

I was first a fan of Meloy through his music as the front man of the Decemberists but I might be an even bigger fan of him as an author, and Carson Ellis may be my favorite Illustrator working today. This is another example of a book with a hidden world that exists right in our own backyard.

Inspired by his homestate of Oregon Meloy’s love for his home shines in the book. This one is a modern day Chronicles of Narnia.

Grace Marks was a real Irish-Canadian maid who, in 1840s Ontario, was convicted of murdering her employer. Did she do it? If so, why?

Margaret Atwood uses the lens of interviews with a (fictional) doctor to unpeel Grace’s many layers (or is she only adding lies?). Dreamy, Gothic, and tragic; I loved it. I also loved the miniseries adaptation from Sarah Polley. 

Gentlemen and Players is a boarding house story with a dark heart. I picked this one from an aunt’s bookshelf and read it expecting something of the sweetness of Chocolat, but found a far more satisfying story, with twisting questions of identity, class, and revenge. I liked the clever split narrative, which used chess imagery, and the mystery of the Black Pawn, whose identity is deftly concealed until the close of the book. This is a surprising psychological thriller that would make a great book club pick, and I will not forget the rooftop chase nor that bonfire night.