Several Reasons Why I'll Give My Kids Arthur Ransome (part I)

So, I think I've mentioned that I've been binge-reading Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons lately, and in the process I've been shocked by how much they haven't offended me. For context, if you're not familiar with this children's book series: It was published (and is set in) 1930's Britain, in the lake districts. It follows the children of two families, the Walkers (Swallows, after their dinghy) and the Becketts (the Amazons, ditto), and occasionally a few other families as well (notably the D's and the Eels.) It's classic adventure storytelling: the kids sail around the lakes, they have disasters and find copper mines and go on adventures - a real staple of the books is elaborate games which are a really heightened and respected version of "let's pretend" games - they pretend to be explorers, pirates, cannibals; adults become dangerous "natives"; they make an uncle literally walk the plank, and have slightly less literal battles to the death. This is all fairly standard stuff, but I have become convinced that the books are unique for several reasons ( and you can find out what they are under the cut! )