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''Secret Water'' is the eighth book in Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. It was published on 28 November 1939.〔Edwards, Owen Dudley (2007). British Children's Fiction in the Second World War. Edinburgh University Press. (p.120 ).〕 This book is set in and around Hamford Water in Essex, close to the resort town of Walton-on-the-Naze. It brings the Swallows and the Amazons together and introduces a new group of characters, the Eels and the Mastodon. Ransome used to sail to Hamford Water, an area of tidal salt marshes and low-lying islands, in his yacht ''Nancy Blackett''. He set the book here to offer his characters new opportunities to explore and make maps in a different landscape. == Plot summary == The Swallows intend to sail in the ''Goblin'' to Hamford Water and camp with their father, but he is called away on naval business. Instead he maroons them with a small dinghy on an island. Before he leaves, Father gives them an outline map of the area they decide to call Secret Water and suggests they survey and chart the area before he returns to pick them up. For a surprise, he has arranged for the Amazons to come down from the Lake District and join them with another dinghy. They see some mysterious footprints which they think look as though they were made by a Mastodon, but turn out to have been left by a local boy wearing mudshoes. He mistakes them for the Eels, another family who camp in the area regularly. Later the Eels arrive and are initially hostile before they settle down for a friendly war. It seems that due to the distractions of war and being cut off by the tides, the chart will not be completed. However early in the last morning two separate groups of children complete it. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Secret Water」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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