My Favourite Sea-faring Adventures! by Julia Green

May 24th 2022

My new picture book, The Boy Who Sailed the World, illustrated by Alex Latimer and published by David Fickling Books, was inspired by the real-life sea-faring adventure of one of my sons. He made an epic voyage in a very small sailing boat across the English Channel, the Bay of Biscay, the Atlantic Ocean and through the Panama Canal into the Pacific Ocean and lived for nine months on the tiny French Polynesian island of Taravai.

His love of boats and the sea started very early on, inspired by the books he listened to and read as a child. Here are five books I recommend for families to read together to get a taste for the sea and adventure!

1. Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain Edward Ardizzone

‘Little Tim lived in a house by the sea. He wanted very much to be a sailor.’  Tim plays on the boats at the beach, talks to his friend the old boatman and learns how to tie knots, and when it’s too wet to go on the beach, visits his friend Captain McFee. Tim’s parents tell him he’s much too young to be a sailor…. But Tim’s determined to run away to sea, and soon he gets his chance to stow away on a steamer… but life on board is not quite how he imagined!

Ardizzone’s illustrations bring Tim’s adventures vividly to life. There’s real peril in this story, and a sense of the true dangers of life at sea. Ardizzone was inspired by the coastal steamers he saw in Ipswich, which is where my sea-faring son now works as a boat-builder.

2. The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch by Ronda and David Armitage

This is a wonderful picture book for younger children, with bold, bright, funny illustrations – and great characters including Hamish the Cat. Mr Grinling lives in a cottage perched on the cliffs, but by day he looks after the lighthouse.  How can he stop the greedy seagulls from stealing the lovely lunches that Mrs Grinling sends him down the wire? There’s a more domestic feel to this story, but life in a lighthouse has a strong appeal to a child’s imagination. There are more books about The Lighthouse Keeper you can go on to read.

3. Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo illustrated by Michael Foreman

Michael’s family decide to sail around the world on their boat the Peggy Sue when Michael’s dad loses his job. Mum is skipper in charge. The story is told partly as Michael’s ‘log’ which he keeps until the day he and his dog Stella are swept overboard. Michael finds himself stranded on a small island – but he is not alone. The relationship he builds with the old man Kensuke is tenderly, beautifully told. Morpurgo’s apparently simple storytelling makes this tale all the more powerful. It’s very accessible for a child reading alone, but lovely as a shared bed-time story too. Lots of excitement and adventure, plus all the emotional heft a good story needs.

4. We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea by Arthur Ransome

Like the Ardizzone, Ransome’s books were written in and for another age. They still work well read aloud; my son loved all the Swallows and Amazon books, as I did when I was a child despite never having sailed a boat. The books are illustrated by Ransome’s neat ink line drawings and maps. I love the way the children are always in charge, have enormous freedom, are bold and adventurous and confident but also care about each other.

This story is set on the river Orwell in Suffolk rather than the Lake District of Swallows and Amazons. By mistake, in deep fog, the four children find themselves sailing out of the river estuary and across the North Sea to the Netherlands. There’s excitement and drama and adventure, plus a safe and happy ending! And lots of detail about how to sail.

I had this story in the back of my mind when I was writing my own sailing adventure, To the Edge of the World (OUP, 2018). Jamie is swept away on Mara’s sailing boat on a dangerous journey to the islands of St Kilda, in the Outer Hebrides. My story, too, is about courage and friendship and a celebration of the natural world.

A book which had a huge influence on my son was Kon-tiki and I by Erik Hesselberg. This ‘sketchbook’ is no longer available to buy except second hand at vast expense, and we seem to have lost the copy we had as a family. The author tells the story of the epic journey across 4300 miles of the Pacific Ocean in a raft, as he experienced and sketched it. Truly inspirational.

5. A First Book of the Sea by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Emily Sutton

This beautiful book was published in 2018. It is the perfect book to share as a family and inspire children to explore and experience the wonder of the oceans of the world and its shores. It’s full of ‘information’ about the natural world – Nicola Davies is outstanding at this, as in all her narrative non-fiction picture books – and here the medium of poetry and Emily Sutton’s beautiful watercolour illustrations bring everything close to a child’s own tangible experience of the world. This book will foster a child’s innate curiosity and sense of adventure and inspire a love of the natural world and the desire to protect it.

The Boy Who Sailed the World is out now.