The Far Distant Oxus and it's sequels were among my favorite childhood books. I recently re-read them and was once again swept into a world in which children create their own adventures, a river, the forest, the moores are an invitation to adventure and life is filled with endless possibilities. The relationships between the children are very real, with just a tinge of mystery. I found myself nostalgic for a childhood that I never had after reading them again. Written by teenagers, the book lacks any sentimentality, rather the authors' youth seems to have lent an authenticity to the thoughts and feelings of the featured children. I wish someone would publish it again.

I first read this book when I was about 11 - I discovered it in my local library, and ended up borrowing it again and again. I have recently managed to track down a second-hand copy but sadly this is a U.S. edition without the authors' charming illustrations. I loved the Arthur Ransome books as a child but I loved this more - so vividly written, and the children seemed so real. One very memorable scene (to me) was when they were reflecting on their own adventures and realising that they would soon be grown up and that their lives, and the countryside in which the book is set (Exmoor) would soon never be the same again. This was very astute for two teenagers to have written shortly before the outbreak of World War II, especially when you look back 60 years later.

This is a book I discovered as a child in 1938, together with the other two books in the series, "Oxus in Summer" and "Escape to Persia". The child's view of the world as endlessly exciting and the kinds of adventures the children have are so authentic that I doubt any child could resist them. In the present climate the freedom these children have, the imagination, the absence of cruelty or danger, the connection to animals and to each other is enormously refreshing. The book was out of print for a long time but was reissued in 1978 with a fascinating forward by Arthur Crowe Ransome, through whose efforts it was originally published. These books were favorites of mine in childhood and when I used to read them aloud to my own children. I still own all three and now read them to my grandchildren. I have never met a child who had a chance to read this book who didn't love it.