Winter Holiday

This may be the best book in the Swallows and Amazons series, which means that it might be the best children's book ever written. The Swallows and Amazons are exploring the Arctic (the area around the lake) during winter vacation when they meet Dick and Dorothea Callum, staying at a farm on the lakeside. Skating, signalling, exploring, ice-boating, astronomy, everything a kid could ask for. Nancy Blackett, the terror of the seas, has finally met a real pirate - the tiny, pistol-carrying Missee Lee, who has rescued them after their shipwreck off the coast of China. The only trouble is she wants to keep them... forever. During the winter holidays the Swallows and Amazons abandon their ships and take to the iced-over lake on skates to form an expedition to their own North Pole Follows the activities of two groups of children who are on a vacation by a great lake and mountain