Can you recommend books similar to Swallows and Amazons/Little House on the Prairie

[travellingfamily]

DS loves stories about children/families living in situations where they have to do everything themselves. We have the whole Swallows and Amazons series, he also loves the Little House books, and Heidi, and is currently reading the Children of the New Forest. Any recommendations? He is 8 and I want to limit the violence if possible (I think you have to accept some guns and axes in books like that, but he is not ready, for example, for Lord of the Flies!) Anything on farming/life in the wilder parts of the world/any other classics/historical fiction?

Thanks so much - some really good suggestions here. Some I know, some I don't, so looking forward to some new reads for me as well!

You might like to look up Kate Seredy's The good master.

I absolutely loved Willard Price , books like Lion Adventure . It's a huge series and I had to read every one!
It's about two very independent boys who collect wild animals for their family's zoo in different countries and really exciting and well written (might be out of print)

Malcolm Saville's Lone Pine Series - Group of children solving mysteries out in the Shropshire Hills, camping etc. Much better written than Blyton.

Eva Ibbotson's Journey to the River Sea

Children of the Oregan Trail
Definitely Willard Price and Nancy Drew as pp have suggested.

Children on the Oregon trail - a family of children go through great hardship in American wilderness.
Noel Street field's Thursday's child.

I see that E. Nesbit has already been mentioned- my favourite is The Treasure Seekers.

Flight of the Doves by Walter Macken

Hatchet? Modern setting, young boy in a plane crash survives but only has a hatchet, and has to survive on his wits. Good: scenes of him making mistakes, not getting everything right first time around. Bad: the pilot dies, and obviously so. Might be one to read before you give it to him/read TO him so you can decide how much of that aspect you want to share with him?

On the bright side, once you're past the crash and the pilot's death, the rest is straight survival and the boy alone and getting on with it, which you said is what he likes :)

I love Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series of books...very readable and even now I still read them every couple of years!

In the Ransome vein, there's also The Far-Distant Oxus - about horses rather than boats - written by two teenage girls.

When your son's older, some of the Antonia Forest books might fit the bill: The Marlows and the Traitor springs to mind (it does involve a gun so wouldn't be suitable for him at the moment).

Victor Canning - the "Smiler" trilogy? Starts with The Runaways? I absolutely loved this as a child but an 8 yr old may find it a bit sad

E Nesbit - The Enchanted Castle, this is a wonderful book and I think it has aged better than some of her other books (all written in early 1900s). I remember watching the BBC serial of the Enchanted Castle in late 1970s or early 80s, the special effects had me spellbound at the time

The Railway Children
Maybe it's too obvious, but Narnia books
I loved A Little Princess at that age

The birchbark house (Native American family living at the time of Little House on the Prairie) Have not read it yet but coming to it soon. DD is also 8.

Caroline Lawrence is the Roman Mysteries and I'd second that - DS loved them.
He also loves the Young Samurai, can't recall the author.