That one alone deserves a content advisory. there's probably a Flood reference in there somewhere, but happily I've forgotten if so - it couldn't have been a tired and beleagured one, anyway). Baker Other authors: See the other authors section. And Christian audiences will approve of some Biblical references (King Herod persecuting the Holy Family and causing the Baby Jesus to be born in a manger in absentia, for example. Some clever ingenuity shown as well - Lincoln finds a copy of The Swiss Family Robinson and considers it a useful reference this book could be viewed much the same way, only honestly, I think the dangers of moving floodwaters and debris-jammed and submerged bridges were taken a little too lightly for my liking.Ĭontent Advisory: it's a post-belief in Father Christmas / Santa Claus story. So begins a very rough, cold, soggy and dangerous week, with thrilling misadventures and some spectacularly dangerous flood-water rescues. What's more is the telephone wires and the electricity are out. The children arrive soaked, exhausted, and frightened to find the house locked and empty.

Their parents, coming separately (the children are coming from their respective boarding schools with their pets in tow), are, in theory, already at home at the house and set up for Christmas. Lincoln, Miranda and Pinks, alongside bull terrier Oliver Cromwell and Siamese cat Sheba, manage against some odds to get from Victoria Station to the flooding village of Duckford before a landslip cuts off the railline, and along (dangerously) flooded roads during a gale to their rented holiday home 'Little Topsails'. Baker was nominated for the Carnegie Medal for her twenty-third book, Castaway Christmas (1963: illustrated by the great artists Richard Kennedy, and here.

'Castaway Christmas' is one of her finest - a kind of domestic adventure, as the title hints. as Lions in the Woodshed), 1954 Ī survival story of three siblings, their dog and their cat, set in rural Somerset during a historic flood. Baker (born 1918) was prolific and popular, but is now very sadly neglected.

Castaway christmas by margaret j baker