Jess, my 7-year old girl, gives it 5 stars.

s while reading:

"Georgina is a girl but she wants to be called 'George'. Is she a tomboy?"

"Who says that boys never cry? The boys in my class cry. A lot!"

"Uncle Quentin is scary!"

"George is a volcano --- she's always angry or is about to get angry."

"How can a kid own an island?"

"Awww, Tim is so cute!"

"Why can't Anne keep a secret? She's such a baby!"

"I it when George took an axe and wrecked the bad guys' motorboat. She's so fierce!"

"I want to read more Famous Five books."

"Why are they famous? Is it because they have adventures?"

"Are they real? No, of course Pokemons are not real!"

2010 ebook jess-shelf146 s1 comment Archit825 3,208



I remember putting this book back down in 2006 because it was "too big" to read. The number of pages of Secret Seven were tiny in comparison to this one.

I was reading a book this summer and not liking the immoral personalities present in there.

Guess, you sometimes need a break from these grown-up melodramas. And who better to go to than Enid?

The treasure hunting and ship wreck brought me back the memories of why I loved the Secret Seven. George and Tim are a delight to watch together. Coming together of all five of them over a beautiful island, fighting off the rogues and the thrill of an adventure -Enid Blyton is an all time classic.

Surely, I am going to read this entire series too.books-we-own108 s Mark LawrenceAuthor 73 books53.4k

The first volume of the 23 Famous Five books sets up a number of patterns and themes that are returned to many times in the series.

It also establishes some basic groundwork that Enid Blyton later forgot and changed, leading to curious inconsistencies.

For example: Julian, Dick, and Anne discover they have a ten year old cousin they have never met. Georgina, daughter of their father's brother Quentin who lives in Kirrin Bay, a region that their own father has only visited once and can remember very little of.

Later we discover that Kirrin Cottage (where Uncle Quentin lives with Aunt Fanny), Kirrin Farm, and Kirrin Island are, or were, all owned by Aunt Fanny's family, along with significant other amounts of land.

But later in the series Julian, Dick and Anne are described as Kirrins (& on one occasion Bancrofts). Which would make Quentin a Kirrin too ... which makes no sense if their father has no association with Kirrin Bay and it was their aunt's family who owned it all...

In this book we see George acquire Timmy the dog, the 5th of the Famous Five. At the start Timmy is staying with the fisher boy Alf, who in later books mysteriously changes his name to James.

We establish George as the hot-tempered girl who wants to be a boy (which I guess these days might have her on a path to gender reassignment -- incidentally we meet at least two other girls who want to be boys in the series and everyone is cool with it but it is specifically stated that a boy can't grow his hair long to be a girl, that would be madness).

We establish Uncle Quentin as a brilliant, forgetful, hot tempered scientist of unknown discipline - this confusion lasts the entire series despite his work being the centre of at least a third of the adventures. I suspect this is in part because Blyton had almost no understanding of science, didn't bother to find out anything as she assumed her readers would not care, and wanted to keep it fluid anyhow so it could spawn plots as required.

We are also introduced to Kirrin Island and its remarkably well preserved castle wherein the children discover the first of their many hoards of gold. In this instance it alleviates the curious poverty of George's father and mother.

The Famous Five are defined by one main characteristic each. Julian is level headed. Dick is good humoured. Anne is compassionate and "girly". George is hotheaded. Timmy is a Swiss Army knife of a dog possessed of vast intelligence and the power to overcome any three men.

Anyway, the action centres on the island. A dodgy sort from London wants to buy it but the children discover his motivation is the rumours of hidden gold, and wouldn't you know it, ten minutes with a spade and the bags of gold are theirs, all theirs!

On this occasion, as on many others in the series, the bad men have guns. There is, to a modern British eye, a ridiculously high prevalence of revolvers in these books. Possibly the proximity of WW2 and the 1940/50s laws actually made this easier to swallow.

Anyway, it's a jolly romp with lots of aspirational goodness for young children, and when I was 9 I was a big fan.

My star rating is fairly arbitrary here.



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.77 s3 comments Luffy (Oda's Version)757 1,008

This fresh and ingenious children's book is for me, divided into two parts. The first part gets 5 stars from me, but from the point where the children succeed, to past the climax, the book barely holds its own.

I really d the first part. Many of the ideas were more than can be hoped in such a simple book. The children were life. Their holidays's details were evocative. The Kirrin House, the island, the boat and the sea, and the people in the story were distinctive.

But when the villains made their appearance, I felt nothing. I really ought to the climax, but the starkly real world felt a doll's house.

I'm giving the book its due but I also cannot give the book more than it deserves. There were lots of positives to take from the story. I hope to reread this book one day and revisit the premise. For a while it made me feel a wonderstruck person.children decent-enough popular62 s Alan Cotterell543 188

I owe this series a lot. This series is the first series I read well over 40 years ago, installing a love of reading that has stayed with me.

After finishing a brilliant but dark novel, I felt that I needed a palette cleanser. This book and the rest of the 21 book series written between 1942-1963, are perfect for this. It is a very quick and enjoyable read. Set in a different era, with no sign of health and safety, or hint of any danger to young children going off for several days on their own. All wonderful fun, adventure, and some mystery for the summer.

The basic story is that of 4 children aged 10-13? And a dog having lots adventures during their summer holidays, in this case searching for lost gold ingots on a small island.

I had forgotten how much I loved this book, the characters, Enid Blyton's way with words, her vivid descriptions. I felt as if I was there. I escaped from boring, adult life for 183 pages, and it. was. great. I will be re-reading the rest of the series, its great being a child again! With lashings of Ginger Beer.
read-202057 s Belinda1,331 203

4,50 sterren - Nederlandse hardcover
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