Coot Club

Coot Club
Coot Club  
photo of Jonathan Cape edition of Arthur Ransome's 1934 novel, Coot Club
Author(s) Arthur Ransome
Cover artist Arthur Ransome
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Swallows and Amazons
Genre(s) Children's books
Publisher Jonathan Cape
Publication date 1934
Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
ISBN 0-613-77232-6
Preceded by Winter Holiday
Followed by Pigeon Post

Coot Club is the fifth book of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books, published in 1934. The book sees Dick and Dorothea Callum visiting the Norfolk Broads during the Easter Holidays, eager to learn to sail and thus impress the Swallows and Amazons when they return to the Lake District later that year. Along with a cast of new characters, Dick and Dorothea explore the North and South Broads and become 'able seamen'.

Plot summary

The Callum children spend their Easter Holidays in Norfolk with a family friend, Mrs. Barrable, who is staying on a small yacht called the Teasel, moored near the village of Horning. There they encounter the Coot Club, a gang of local children comprising Tom Dudgeon, twin girls 'Port' and 'Starboard' (Nell and Bess Farland), and three younger boys — Joe, Bill and Pete (the Death and Glories).

A noisy and inconsiderate party of city-dwellers (dubbed the 'Hullabaloos' by the children) hire the motor cruiser Margoletta and threaten an important nesting site (one of many monitored by the Coots) by mooring in front of it. Despite warnings "not to mix with foreigners", Tom stealthily loosens the Margoletta's moorings to save the nest and hides behind the Teasel to save his father's reputation. Mrs. Barrable does not give Tom away to the Hullabaloos and instead asks him to teach the Callums to sail.

Tom, Port, and Starboard join the crew of the Teasel, and together with Mrs. Barrable and her pug William, the children teach Dick and Dorothea the basics of sailing up and down the Broads. Dick shares the Coot Club's keen interest in the local birdlife, and Dorothea uses the voyage as fodder for her new story, "Outlaw Of The Broads" based on the Hullabaloos vow to catch Tom. They chase the crew of the Teasel all over the Broads, eventually managing to crash the Margoletta in the perilously tidal Breydon Water — necessitating a dramatic rescue by the Coots.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

BBC produced a film based on Coot Club in 1984[1]

Footnotes


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Coot — For other uses, see Coot (disambiguation). Coots Eurasian Coot Scientific classification Kingdom …   Wikipedia

  • List of boats in Arthur Ransome books — This is a listing of boats from the Swallows and Amazons series of books by Arthur Ransome. Arthur Ransome based many of the boats on real ones that he knew or had owned.*Swallow: A Morecambe Bay sailing dinghy with a small keel and a brown sail …   Wikipedia

  • List of Swallows and Amazons characters — This is a listing of characters from the Swallows and Amazons series of books by Arthur Ransome. Contents 1 The Swallows 2 The Amazons 3 The Ds 4 The Coots …   Wikipedia

  • Swallows and Amazons (series) — Swallows and Amazons is a series of children s books by English author Arthur Ransome, named after the title of the first book in the series. The 12 books involve adventures by groups of children during school holidays, mostly in England and… …   Wikipedia

  • The Big Six — infobox Book | name = The Big Six title orig = translator = image caption = author = Arthur Ransome cover artist = Arthur Ransome country = United Kingdom language = English series = Swallows and Amazons genre = Children s novels publisher =… …   Wikipedia

  • Клуб Простака — Coot Club …   Википедия

  • Hullabaloo — The word hullabaloo is an English noun meaning an uproar or fuss. Hullabaloo may also refer to: *Hullabaloo a general name for some performance, celebration or other noisy event *Hullabaloos the name given to a particularly insensitive group of… …   Wikipedia

  • Arthur Ransome — author and journalist.He is best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children s books. These tell of school holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. Many of the books involve sailing;… …   Wikipedia

  • List of characters in Arthur Ransome books — This is a listing of characters from the Swallows and Amazons series of books by Arthur Ransome.The Swallows*John Walker eldest of the Walker children and Captain of the Swallow *Susan Walker Mate of the Swallow and the cook and domestic… …   Wikipedia

  • The Broads — Not to be confused with The Broads, Newfoundland and Labrador. A typical view of the Norfolk Broads The Broads are a network of mostly navigable rivers and lakes in the English counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. The Broads, and some surrounding… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”