And then there's the casual racism. There's some genuine room for debate on Blyton's intentions in this regard; by the end, much of what seems at first to be casual racism from Blyton is revealed to have been Blyton's assumption of, and attempting manipulation of, the reader's own casual racism; and so I'd be reluctant to start burning effigies purely on the evidence of this book.

When Bill buys a plane, he decides to take the four children for a holiday, but events at the airport lead to the four getting into the wrong plane. When the plane lands they find themselves in an unfamiliar valley scarred by war and, once again, the four children fall into an adventure involving a lost treasure sought by a band of villains.

But sometimes, it can be a unexpected pleasure. You know it won't live up to your memories, and so your expectations can be low, and easily surpassed. Blyton was a prolific author of children's books, who penned an estimated 800 books over about 40 years. Her stories were often either children's adventure and mystery stories, or fantasies involving magic. Notable series include: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, The Five Find-Outers, Noddy, The Wishing Chair, Mallory Towers, and St. Clare's. To be honest, it wasn't reading, it was sharing the adventures with the characters, they did get into some predicaments, ones we all dreamed about getting into ourselves as kids in real life! It can be hard, re-reading childhood favourites (or, in this case, moderately well-liked introductions to series that contain favourites). They never live up to your memories.

I was very pleasantly surprised, on re-reading The Island of Adventure. Yes, the plot is thin, and the characters, while well-sketched, still essentially simplistic. But it's fun - who does't love a good secret tunnel? In particular, it's rather better written than I was expecting, and better than it needed to be, with surprising depth and sympathy even in peripheral characters: I can see why this felt real to me in a way that more overtly childish books did not. While the prose, and in particular the dialogue, are inevitably dated, they're more 'pleasantly old-fashioned' than 'incomprehensible' or 'ridiculous'. I know I'm dating myself here, but kids haven't changed much. Dinners (and breakfast and lunch) are immensely important to the young, and one of the key moments in all the Adventure books always concerns them stumbling over a cache of tinned foods that will (phew!) tide them over until help comes. Dinah Mannering: Philip's younger sister of about twelve at the beginning of the series. Like her brother, she has a tuft of hair standing up atop her head, but she shares neither his gift in attracting, nor his love for, animals, especially the small creeping types (mice, insects, snakes etc.). Temperamental as she is, she often finds herself the target of her brother's teasing, but otherwise she is quite level-headed, tough, intelligent and grown-up for her age. Originally, the series was supposed to end after this episode, but under the great demand of dedicated fans, Blyton wrote two more episodes: Recovering from a very bad flu, the four children and their family make a river trip in the Middle East. But there is another reason for this choice of destination: Bill has been asked to watch a crook named Raya Uma. The children soon find another adventure revolving around a magnificent buried city filled with treasure beyond imagination.Waktu SD, cita-cita aku dan teman-temanku (sesama pembaca Lima Sekawan) adalah menemukan harta di suatu tempat rahasia yang bisa dilewati dari bawah tanah~ Cita-cita ini kandas begitu saja ( ◡‿◡ ) The stories show the four children off on their own, discovering and solving mysteries without much adult assistance. Although the publication dates span a decade, Blyton reportedly wrote each of the novels in less than a week.

Fortunately I have old versions of these books in German and in English (I bought all 8 books in English on my first trip to the UK in 1981 at Foyle's in London). Later versions were often modernized to make them politically correct (which I hate as that's not what I remember reading when I was a child). Enid Blyton (1897-1968) πραγματικά δε χρειάζεται συστάσεις. Είναι η συγγραφέας που μας χάρισε αξέχαστες στιγμές ανάγνωσης και μας σύστησε ευρηματικές παρέες παιδιών που ζουν περιπέτειες, λύνουν μυστήρια, ταξιδεύουν, κινδυνεύουν και χάρη σ’ αυτούς περνούσαν ευχάριστα και όμορφα οι εξωσχολικές μας ώρες. Ποιος δεν έχει διαβάσει τους Μυστικούς 7 ή τους 5 φίλους, ποιο κορίτσι δεν έχει ονειρευτεί το Σεν Κλερ ή το Μάλορυ Τάουερ; Έτσι λοιπόν οι εκδόσεις Μίνωας επανακυκλοφορούν τη σειρά «Περιπέτεια» ξεκινώντας από την αρχή. Φύγαμε για «Περιπέτεια στο νησί»; My favorites are "Castle of Adventure", "Valley of Adventure" (her masterpiece), "Sea of Adventure" and "Circus of Adventure".Bill takes the foursome on a trip to a Scottish island to help them recover from measles. But amongst the islands, they stumble upon a sinister plot; Bill disappears, and the children are left alone to find out where he is, what is going on and how they will escape. Dulu pas SMP dipinjemin seri Petualang ini tapi yang vol.6 ...dan karena waktu itu juga sudah baca Lima Sekawan, STOP, dan Trio Detektif, rasa-rasanya keempat tokoh utama di seri ini jadi kurang meninggalkan kesan~ Thanks to a German friend at elementary school I discovered Enid Blyton's Adventure series and Famous Five series in the fall of 1965 and reread them from time to time even now in my sixties. Following the events in The Ship of Adventure, Bill marries Mrs Mannering and adopts all the children as his own. The children call him Bill Smugs due to the fact that he introduced himself under that alias on their first adventure. This time I read them in German and in English and compare them chapter for chapter to find the differences in the German translation.