Children’s fantasy adventure with magic model boat and Ramses II I’m looking for a children’s book. Set in Britain, I think in the 1930s, and written then. Basic plot starts with a boy discovering a strange ‘antiques’ shop in a seaside town. In it is a model boat / ship, I think of a Viking longboat, which he acquires. Boat becomes a means to various time travel adventures to the past for boy and his family (brother & sister, or were they cousins?) which an adventure in ancient Egypt that involved rescuing Pharaoh Ramses II from an ambush by the Hittites at the Battle of Kaddish, visiting a medieval castle and later bringing back the daughter of the castle to ‘modern’ England – she is terrified by a motor car she thinks is a dragon. One other plot point. The boy tries to find the shop again once he discovers the boat is magic but cannot. But some time later does find it and knows he has to give up / return the magic boat model. I know I read it as child (1950s) but only came to mind when I came across a little Viking longboat model in a curio shop. Nice model, but not magic! Many thanks for any pointers.
Stump the Bookseller
New format, same book stumper solving.
Hilda Lewis, The Ship That Flew.
Quite possibly “The Ship That Flew” by Hilda Lewis
This is definitely ‘The ship that flew’ by Hilda Lewis. First published in 1939. When Peter sees the model ship in the shop window, he wants it more than anything else on Earth. But this is no ordinary model. The ship takes Peter and the other children on magical flights, wherever they ask to go. Time after time the magic ship takes them on different exciting adventures, to different countries, and to different times. And why should magic ever end?
Hilda Lewis, The Ship That Flew. Oxford children’s classic.
Many thanks everybody for your replies. Yes I have now checked out The Ship That Flew and it is definitely the book I was recalling. Copy now on order!