The Swiss Family Robinson
Published 2006 · 345 pages · 94,875 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Children's Literature, Young Adult
How hard is The Swiss Family Robinson to read?
The Swiss Family Robinson scores 19 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 32 out of 100
- The book teaches natural history, so animal and plant names and some nautical terms appear often. The prose stays plain and suited to young readers, close to Judy Blume's accessibility with more specialized terms.
- Sentence structure: 32 out of 100
- Sentences are clear and mostly declarative, in the manner of nineteenth-century children's translation. Some long, formal constructions appear, but they never obscure the action.
- Abstraction: 25 out of 100
- Events are concrete: building, hunting, farming and exploring. The father's moral and religious lessons add a thin layer of abstraction.
- Information density: 38 out of 100
- New animals, plants and tools appear in nearly every chapter, each with an explanation. The pace is episodic and easy to follow, denser than Beach Read but lighter than a natural history text.
- Narrative indirection: 12 out of 100
- The father narrates and states the lesson of every episode outright. Readers have little to infer.
- Symbolic density: 22 out of 100
- Providence, order and industry sit on the surface of the story. The tree house and salvaged ship carry simple meanings.
- Ironic distance: 60 out of 100
- The tone is earnest and didactic throughout, with no gap between what is said and what is meant.
- Resolution withholding: 15 out of 100
- Problems resolve neatly, and the family prospers. The ending, in most versions, leaves a few open threads about their future but gives clear closure.
- Structural complexity: 15 out of 100
- The story follows a linear sequence of episodes, often framed as the father's journal. It is simpler than Anne Frank's diary only in having more incident.
How The Swiss Family Robinson is regarded
The Swiss Family Robinson holds a literary regard score of 46 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.