In many ways Peter Duck is the best of the series.

So well written that you don't realize that it is written at all. The adventures just seem to occur to oneself.

This is the real stuff of imagination which might so easily happen. . . all the details are true to life, the ship is a real ship, with all its sails and rigging made familiar, and the voyage which those happy children make to southern seas and coral islands is the beautiful possibility of daring and freedom become living and credible.

He's funny, clever, nimble and moving. Above all, his poetic generosity refuses to consider serious subjects as out of bounds just because he's writing for a young audience.