Dick and Dorothea are staying with Nancy and Peggy, the Amazons, at Beckfoot. But the Great Aunt comes to visit and she mustn't know the Ds are staying so they go to camp in an old hut in the woods, learning to tickle trout and to skin and cook a rabbit. Meanwhile Timothy is staying in Captain Flint's houseboat and needs Dick to burgle Beckfoot to get important chemicals. In many ways this is one of Ransome's best: the story-telling is mature and he spins a classic adventure yarn from a simple summer holiday. As always the characters are perfect, with the portrayal of Nancy being at its best. You even empathise with the Great-Aunt before the end.

And one of the wonderful things about Ransome is that he never talks down to his audience. This is a children's book: "I'll just hoist the sail for you. You take the halliard through the ring in the bows and it acts as a forestay. Up she goes. Sorry, Dick. Your head was in the wrong place. Spectacles all right? Make fast to this cleat. Then bowse down the tackle to cock the yard. Just till there are up and down ripples in the sail." (Ch 15)