Antonia Forest fans

I've read all the Ransome books, many times! Part of it was because I always wanted to sail. Also, they had girls in much more adventurous roles than other books. Yes, George in the Famous Five was adventurous, but it was always down to her wanting to be "like a boy". In the S&A books, Susan was the domesticated one, along with Peggy to some lesser extent, but they girls were every bit as into the adventures as the boys and weren't constantly being patted on the head and told to stay out of things, like Anne was.