Nautical fiction for children

As a parent of a sailing-mad 10-year-old, I’m always on the lookout for nautical titles to quench my son’s thirst for reading, which is his second favourite thing to do. But almost a century on from the first volume of Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series, why is it so hard to find contemporary writers of nautical fiction for children?

A search online at Waterstone’s revealed only three titles under the category ‘sailing fiction’, one of which was a 27-page ‘get-into-reading’ book. Another had nothing to do with sailing, and was only listed because the publisher’s name had the word ‘sailing’ in its title.

Delving deeper I found Quentin Blake’s A Sailing Boat in the Sky and a yet to be published picture book Sailing to America by Robert Gernhardt.

So I reached out to a few sailing fiction children’s authors to find out what books have influenced or made an impression on them within this genre.

Jon Tucker

Jon Tucker, New Zealand author of a series of four children’s books inspired by Ransome, lists Night Race to Kawau as a realistic New Zealand novel (admittedly written two decades ago) by Tessa Duder, an author noted for her sailing background. “In many ways this neo-classic novel reflects Ransome’s We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea in a more concise and contemporary work.”

He keeps with the Australasian authors by noting by Kathryn Lomer. “This is a Tasmanian young