The Swiss family Robinson

About the book

After a shipwreck, a Swiss father, mother, and four sons must establish a home in an unfamiliar tropical environment. Salvaged equipment and supplies provide a beginning, but continued survival depends on observation, work, cooperation, and the ability to adapt materials to new purposes. Building shelter, managing animals, cultivating plants, and exploring the surrounding country become occasions for instruction as well as adventure. The father's narration connects practical knowledge with religious trust and the education of his children. The island's remarkably varied resources belong to an imaginative teaching world rather than a dependable guide to real geography or survival. Its enduring attraction lies in the detailed transformation of precarious refuge into an increasingly elaborate family settlement.

• Family cooperation
• Practical education
• Making a home

Why read it

Read it for the inventive pleasure of turning available resources into a home, one problem and experiment at a time.

English reading text