Swim for Your Life is the fifth in author-illustrator Shoo Rayner’s Olympia series of chapter books, which show what life was like for ordinary children in Ancient Greece. It features a boy named Olly, whose father runs the gymnasium where the great athletes train, and who dreams of being an Olympic champion. In Swim for Your Life, the athletes are preparing for a swimming race, and making sacrifices to the river god, Alfeios (Alpheus). Olly and Spiro, his rival, have the morning off. Spiro’s fierce dog Kerberos chases Olly to the river’s edge, before being called off by Olly’s sister, Chloe (who has a special bond with the dog), and her friend, Hebe. They invite the boys to join them swimming in a quiet part of the river.  It emerges that Spiro cannot swim. The children visit Hebe’s father, who is a priest at the temple, and ask Linos, the butcher, to donate some pig’s bladders for a float for Spiro.  

At lunchtime, the boys go to set the tables for the athletes, and listen to Simonedes the historian talk about Alfeios, and the god’s history with Artemis (how he tried to abduct Artemis, but she fooled him by disguising her identity, and how in his anger at being thwarted he threw his river into spate). Olly looks at a wall painting of Alfeios (body of a fish; horns of a bull) and wonders if the river monster is real.  Spiro pretends to be the monster, and Olly fears that the river has taken his naughty arch-enemy. The children then watch the athletes as they race in the river. When Kerberos, Spiro’s fierce dog, falls in, Olly rescues him by diving in after him and encouraging him to lean on the pigs’ bladder-floats, which he has tied to a stick. From then on, when Kerberos chases him, Olly jumps into the water, where the dog becomes his friend.  

Swim for Your Life is an educational reader for primary-school aged children. It uses large text and simple language to help new readers. Here, the simple, accessible story about Olly’s enjoyment of swimming and Spiro’s nervousness in the water, is tied to explanation about how the athletes of ancient Greece performed swimming races (though not as part of the main Olympic games). A loose connection is made to the myth of Alpheus, and his attempt to abduct Artemis, and some social history is explored in the discussion of how to make a swimming float from a pig’s bladder (obtained from the temple butcher). From these descriptions, Rayner shows the practicalities of sport in the ancient world. Young readers may enjoy these elements of social history and practical physics, and identify with Olly in his quest to defeat the unpleasant Spiro, though the origin of the boys’ rivalry is not given, nor their relationship developed (perhaps Rayner sacrifices this aspect in order to meet the demands of this simple genre of short books).

Some of the characters in Swim for your Life have authentic ancient Greek names. The full form of Olly’s name is not given, and Spiro is a modern Greek name. Kerberos, the dog, is clearly named for the guardian of the underworld. The illustrations are carefully researched, drawn from ancient Greek art, as Rayner explains on his website.