Strong Winds series allusion to Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons series as well as other works, particularly R.L. Stevenson's "Treasure Island" and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha". Cassandra Jardine, reviewing for "The Daily Telegraph", wrote ""The Salt-Stained Book"... is not just a homage to the Swallows and Amazons stories. Donny and Anna, Jones's fictional characters, live in the contemporary world, escaping social workers, rather than pirates. There's far more emotion than in Ransome's books" but "they share the same confident, risk-taking spirit..." Amanda Craig, reviewing "The Salt-stained Book" for "The Times" "...wasn't sure about the historical framing device that gives the novel
Swallows and Amazons for, generally speaking, nothing makes drearier reading than the conscious juvenility of adults." Muggeridge continued by saying,"Mr. Ransome has the same magical power that Lewis Carroll had of being the child in terms of himself. He never talks down; never finds it necessary to be patronising or sentimental. And sentimentality is the most terrible pitfall that besets those who venture into the world of play. […] Captain John and Mate Susan, and Able-seaman Titty, and Ship's Boy Roger are not at all like Christopher Robin. [T]hey are children. And the story of their adventures on a little island in the