Margot Pardoe supervision; as in Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons series", these often take place in a rural setting. However, there are some differences which set Pardoe's books, and the "Bunkle" series in particular, apart. The children do not live in a vacuum; unlike Blyton's St Clare's series, World War II is mentioned (with the associated inconveniences of rationing and black-out), and the children also age. Bunkle is ten when the first book starts and ages gradually until the last but one volume, before returning to his original age in the last adventure which is hard to find owing to a short
Swallows and Amazons series remainder of his books himself. In 1938, he drew his own pictures for "Swallows and Amazons" and "Swallowdale" to replace Webb's. Ransome's pictures were done in pen and ink with no colour, although colours have been added by some publishers in later editions. Typically, figures in the pictures are shown from the back, though there are some which show the faces of a few of the characters. Taqui Altounyan, the oldest of the children to whom the first edition of "Swallows and Amazons" was dedicated, recalls that "He shirked drawing faces and got over that difficulty with back views of