Many of those isolated hamlets are most easily accessible by boat rather than car, so in 1959, a group of librarians secured government funding to launch a waterborne library service with a special emphasis on children’s literature.

Three well known books came across my desk this week, rescued from years of likely abandonment on an Op Shop shelf. They are all acknowledged as historical classics in the Sailing genre, but it’s interesting to see how much of the content remains relevant today and how much becomes just quaint outdated anecdotes.