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1
Feb
2017
I was asked recently to do a talk about books that had influenced me as a child. Robinson Crusoe, for example. And its imitator, The Swiss Family Robinson. Treasure Island. Ernest Thompson Seton’s books about wood lore. Enid Blyton’s Railway Children.
Perhaps most influential, the Arthur Ransome series, about English kids turned loose for summer holidays in the Lake District – and in later books, around the world – with no adult supervision! In the first book, Swallows and Amazons, the oldest was a boy of twelve, the youngest seven. Unthinkable today. But in the 1930s, that was apparently quite acceptable parenting.
And I realized that all of these books had a common theme -- making do with what you have. Crusoe couldn’t run to the nearest Canadian Tire store for a package of nails. Seton’s boy heroes didn’t have a Mountain Equipment Co-op handy for bows and arrows.
Categories: Soft Edges
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