This book was written in secret by two schoolgirls in the 1930s and sent to Arthur Ransome, who liked it and got it published. It became quite successful and was followed by two sequels before the Second World War intervened.

It’s about children’s adventures with ponies on Exmoor, and naturally it’s dated by now, like Ransome’s own books. However, it’s very competently written (well up to the standards of adult writers for children) and makes quite a pleasant read if you like that kind of thing.

Although Ransome was clearly impressed with it (he wrote a very generous introduction), in several respects it doesn’t really match him at his best.

1. There’s a whole series of adventures in the book, but the authors manage to make the adventures seem easy: they don’t have Ransome’s knack of making a drama out of a small adventure. Thus, I reach the end of the book feeling inaccurately that nothing much happened.

2. The main characters are not very well distinguished from each other, so they seem almost interchangeable; apart from the mysterious Maurice, the very capable boy of unknown origins, who functions as the hero.

3. In a class-conscious society in which money must have had its usual importance, Ransome managed to write books in which the main characters rarely used money at all, and people of different classes mixed with each other amicably and unselfconsciously. Hull and Whitlock painted society more as they saw it: their young characters feel apart from and somewhat superior to the lower classes, they have money and they spend it as necessary, though without extravagance.

It’s worth mentioning (possibly as an advantage) that Hull and Whitlock’s characters are a bit wilder than Ransome’s. Ransome wrote as an adult and wanted his children to be adventurous, but basically well-behaved and responsible, from an adult point of view. Hull and Whitlock were close in age to their characters and didn’t yet have the adult point of view.

Thus, Ransome’s characters worry about what their parents would think of their behaviour, even when the parents are far away. The Hull and Whitlock characters take a more practical view: adult approval matters only if adults find out what you’ve been doing. This is how children actually think, rather than how parents wish them to think.

Ransome’s characters never drink alcohol; Hull and Whitlock’s are offered farm cider (which can have an alcohol content similar to wine) and knock it back as though it’s not the first time.

However, Hull and Whitlock’s characters are like Ransome’s in one respect: although some of them are in their teens, they remain children. In the 1930s, the teenager had apparently not been invented.

(This review was written in 2011) ( )

Well written ( )

As a kid, this was one of my very favorite books. I read and re-read it. I don't think I was aware how old it was at the time. It was published in 1937. It was written by two girls, ages 14 and 15, who submitted their manuscript to their favorite author, Arthur Ransome.

I've just finished reading his 'Swallows and Amazons,' which made me think of this book. Having now read both, it's very very clear how blatantly influenced by that book Hull and Whitlock were. This story is an homage to Ransome: a version of his story with their own ideal vacation, drawing on their own summer experiences.

Here, the young people are spending their holiday on the moors - with ponies for them to ride and explore. Inspired by the poetry they're read, they transpose an exotic imaginary landscape onto the English countryside, imbuing everything they see with magic.

Unlike in Ransome's book, there's a hint of innocent romance here (involving a tall, dark stranger, of course) - which, yes, I appreciated as a girl. But mostly it's memorable for its perfect description of how the love of reading can add richness to everything one experiences on a daily basis. And of course, there're the ponies.

There are two sequels to this book, which I've never had the opportunity to read. I'll give interlibrary loan a shot... ( )

Many years ago, I think in the Bowling Green (OH) Junior High School Library, I found a copy of Escape to the Oxus (a later book in this series, also apparently titled Escape to Persia) but it was not until much later that I got this copy of the first book. As a great admirer of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons books, I was very interested to learn that two girls (ages 14 and 15) had been inspired to write a similar story of English children playing at being Persian heroes instead of pirates, ridng horses the way the S& A group sailed boats. I have never completely read the series since I gather from reviews that at least one of the later ones includes some rather sadistic torture. ( )

This was written and illustrated by two teenage girls in the 1930s. They sent their manuscript to Swallows & Amazons author Arthur Ransome, who helped them get it published. I remember reading it when I was about 11, and how much I enjoyed it. I had almost forgotten it and was delighted to find a reissued edition many years later. For some reason the children in it pretend to be Persian and worship Ahura Mazda, naming their Somerset surroundings after parts of Afghanistan and northern India. There's a lovely open-air feel to the book, and the children's spirited independence and imagination was quite stirring to me as a child. I never liked Arthur Ransome though! And I positively hated Enid Blyton.