The Strong Winds series is a series of

children's book Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. In addition to conventional literary genres, modern children's literature is classified by the intended age of the reade ...

s written by English author Julia Jones. The books reference many of the settings and characters of the

Swallows and Amazons series The ''Swallows and Amazons'' series is a series of twelve children's adventure novels by English author Arthur Ransome. Set in the interwar period, the novels involve group adventures by children, mainly in the school holidays and mainly in E ...

Arthur Ransome Arthur Michell Ransome (18 January 1884 – 3 June 1967) was an English author and journalist. He is best known for writing and illustrating the ''Swallows and Amazons'' series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of childre ...

. The books use

adventure stories Adventure fiction is a type of fiction that usually presents danger, or gives the reader a sense of excitement. Some adventure fiction also satisfies the literary definition of romance fiction. History In the introduction to the ''Encycloped ...

about

sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, Windsurfing, windsurfer, or Kitesurfing, kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' (Land sa ...

to provide action and structure amid developing themes of

foster care Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home ( residential child care community or treatment centre), or private home of a state- certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent", or with a family mem ...

mental illness A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...

disability Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be Cognitive disability, cognitive, Developmental disability, d ...

and corrupt officialdom.

Plot summary

Volume 1 ''The Salt-stained Book''

Donny Walker (aged 13) and his

deaf Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts. In medical contexts, the meaning of deafness is hearing loss that precludes a person from understanding spoken language, an audiological condition. In this context it is written ...

mother Skye travel in a

campervan A campervan, also referred to as a camper, caravanette, motorhome or Recreational vehicle, RV (recreational vehicle) in North America, is a self-propelled vehicle that provides both transport and sleeping accommodation. The term describes vans th ...

Shotley Shotley is a village and civil parish south-east of Ipswich in the English county of Suffolk. It is in the Babergh District, Babergh district and gives its name to the Shotley peninsula between the Rivers River Stour, Suffolk, Stour and River ...

to meet Donny's long-lost great-aunt Ellen. Following a car accident authorities place Donny in

and his mother in a

psychiatric hospital A psychiatric hospital, also known as a mental health hospital, a behavioral health hospital, or an asylum is a specialized medical facility that focuses on the treatment of severe Mental disorder, mental disorders. These institutions cater t ...

. Donny forms

friendship Friendship is a Interpersonal relationship, relationship of mutual affection between people. It is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an "acquaintance" or an "association", such as a classmate, neighbor, coworker, or colleague. Althoug ...

s with local children, "discovers his inborn prowess as a

sailor A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. While the term ''sailor'' ...

" and evades a local police officer to find his great-aunt.21 July 2011
Fiction for older children
book review page on ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' website, viewed 13 October 2012

Volume 2 ''A Ravelled Flag''

Donny and his growing number of allies are still battling the school and social services, but what first appeared to be immovable bureaucracy is gradually revealed to be criminal malice. Some of the first episode's

villain A villain (also known as a " black hat", "bad guy" or "baddy"; The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.126 "baddy (also baddie) noun (pl. -ies) ''informal'' a villain or criminal in a book, film, etc.". the feminine form is villai ...

s are developed as actively conspiring against heroes Donny and Skye, with the motive of exploiting illegal immigrants.Characters develop nicely in book two
on ''

Otago Daily Times The ''Otago Daily Times'' (''ODT'') is a newspaper published by Allied Press Ltd in Dunedin, New Zealand. The ''ODT'' is one of the country's four main daily newspapers, serving the southern South Island with a circulation of around 26,000 and ...

'' website, viewed 13 October 2012

Volume 3 ''Ghosting Home''

In the conclusion Donny becomes aware that a mysterious red-and-white schooner is a serious threat to his family. Meanwhile, fourteen-year-old Min leaves his village in China on the first part of a journey which he hopes will take him to England in search of his mother who left the village seven years before.Ghosting Home review
on The Bookbag website, viewed 8 November 2012

Volume 4 ''The Lion of Sole Bay''

In this un-numbered sequel, previous minor character Luke was planning to spend a school vacation with his father restoring an old fishing boat but his father is seriously injured in a boatyard accident. Meanwhile, interest among boat-mooring neighbours in a Suffolk pub sign originally from a warship captured in the Battle of Sole Bay in 1672 shows that historic animosity between the English and the Dutch hasn't entirely worked itself out.

Volume 5 ''Black Waters''

Xanthe Ribiero is in hiding. She has made an unforgiving enemy and has taken refuge on a redundant lightship in the Essex marshes. The river Blackwater sparkles in the early summer sun and the weather is set fair for sailing, but the children Xanthe has come to teach are oddly fearful – as if they are in hiding too.

Volume 6 ''Pebble''

Liam's home life is complicated; he struggles to protect his family against unseen dangers but a half-term trip up the Suffolk coast in the Chinese junk ''Strong Winds'' triggers a series of events.

Volume 7 ''Voyage North

The setting is aboard a Russian oligarch’s superyacht off Norway, and the status of Donny’s foes has similarly grown, from the suspect social worker and bullying policeman of The Salt-Stained Book to include the Russian President.

Settings

Locations for the narrative include

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

and

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in northeastern Essex, England. It is the second-largest settlement in the county, with a population of 130,245 at the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census. The demonym is ''Colcestrian''. Colchester occupies the ...

;

Pin Mill A pin mill is a mill that comminutes materials by the action of pins that repeatedly move past each other. Much like a kitchen blender, it breaks up substances through repeated impact. The mill is a type of vertical shaft impactor mill and consi ...

Alton Water Alton Water (or Alton Reservoir) is a manmade reservoir located on the Shotley peninsula. It is the largest in Suffolk, with a perimeter of over . Construction Due to a shortage of water in the Ipswich area in the 1960s, a list of twenty potent ...

River Deben The River Deben is a river in Suffolk rising to the west of Debenham, though a second, higher source runs south from the parish of Bedingfield. The river passes through Woodbridge, turning into a tidal estuary before entering the North Sea at ...

and Shotley, Suffolk;

Lowestoft Lowestoft ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk (district), East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . As the List of extreme points of the United Kingdom, most easterly UK se ...

Zeebrugge Zeebrugge (; from , meaning "Bruges-on-Sea"; , ) is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zeebrugge and a seafront resort with ...

Creating the series

In 2006, while working on a PhD thesis, Julia Jones decided to become a writer of adventure stories like the

she had read as a child.biography page
on Julia Jones' personal website, golden-duck.co.uk, viewed 8 July 2011 ''The Salt-Stained Book'', the first part of a planned trilogy, was released in June 2011. Jones hoped the trilogy would "inspire a new generation of children to mess about in boats." A fourth book followed the original trilogy, to make it a 'series'.Julia Jones page
on Amazon.com, viewed 17 October 2013

Allusion

The books contain frequent

allusion Allusion, or alluding, is a figure of speech that makes a reference to someone or something by name (a person, object, location, etc.) without explaining how it relates to the given context, so that the audience must realize the connection in the ...

as well as other works, particularly R.L. Stevenson's ''

Treasure Island ''Treasure Island'' (originally titled ''The Sea Cook: A Story for Boys''Hammond, J. R. 1984. "Treasure Island." In ''A Robert Louis Stevenson Companion'', Palgrave Macmillan Literary Companions. London: Palgrave Macmillan. .) is an adventure a ...

'' and

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include the poems " Paul Revere's Ride", '' The Song of Hiawatha'', and '' Evangeline''. He was the first American to comp ...

's 1855 poem ''

The Song of Hiawatha ''The Song of Hiawatha'' is an 1855 epic poem in trochaic tetrameter by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which features Native American characters. The epic relates the fictional adventures of an Ojibwe warrior named Hiawatha and the tragedy of his lo ...

''.

Critical reception

Cassandra Jardine Cassandra Caroline Mary Jardine (16 November 1954 – 29 May 2012) was a British journalist, best known as a contributor to ''The Daily Telegraph'' over a twenty-year period. Life Born in London, the youngest of three daughters, her parent ...

, reviewing for ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'', wrote "''The Salt-Stained Book''... is not just a homage to the Swallows and Amazons stories. Donny and Anna, Jones's fictional characters, live in the contemporary world, escaping social workers, rather than pirates. There's far more emotion than in Ransome's books" but "they share the same confident, risk-taking spirit..."Setting sail on Arthur Ransome's boat
on ''

'' website, viewed 13 October 2012 Amanda Craig, reviewing ''The Salt-stained Book'' for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' "...wasn't sure about the historical framing device that gives the novel its title..." but wrote "Among so many children's books that seem machine-tooled, Jones's novel feels like a hand-crafted toy, whose occasional wonkiness only adds to its appeal."Amanda Craig in ''

'', 25 June 2011; mirrored on the reviewer's personal website
Julia Jones, The Salt Stained Book
, viewed 15 October 2012 John Wilson, reviewing ''A Ravelled Flag'' in the ''

'' described the frequent allusions to Ransome, writing "the writer's skill is evident in the constant references not being too leaden in their effect" while Dennis Hamley, for ''Armadillo'' magazine commented "All authors, whether consciously or not, are writing in a tradition. Now and again it is overt so that a book becomes a conscious homage." Sue Magee reviewing ''Ghosting Home'' for The Bookbag wrote "...the series has never fought shy of taking on the big issues. This time it's people-trafficking and Julia Jones doesn't patronise her readers... It's likely to provoke a lot of discussion." Peter Willis, reviewing ''Voyage North'' for ''Yachting Monthly'' wrote "With Jones’s dense and dynamic writing and her unfettered imagination, plus its eager engagement with the social zeitgeist of our times, the series deserves to be recognised as on a par with

Philip Pullman Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman (born 19 October 1946) is an English writer. He is best known for the fantasy trilogy ''His Dark Materials''. The first volume, ''Northern Lights'' (1995), won the Carnegie Medal

and very much a 21st-century classic of grown-up children’s literature."

Awards

*In January 2013, ''The Salt-stained Book'' was the monthly winner of The Book Awards people's choice.The Book Awards hall of fame
page on thebookawards.com website, viewed 2 February 2013

Bibliography

Books in the Strong Winds series: * ''The Salt-Stained Book'' (Strong Winds trilogy 1) 16 June 2011 * ''A Ravelled Flag'' (Strong Winds Trilogy 2) 1 November 2011 * ''Ghosting Home'' (Strong Winds Trilogy 3) 2 July 2012 * ''The Lion of Sole Bay'' (Strong Winds Series) 7 October 2013 * ''Black Waters'' (Strong Winds Series) 2 July 2015 * ''Pebble'' (Strong Winds Series) 15 November 2018 * ''Voyage North'' (Strong Winds Vol. 7) 15 October 2022

References

{{Reflist Series of children's books Sailing books British children's novels 2010s children's books Children's books about disability