Five on a Hike Together

Enid Blyton's Five on a Hike Together is a Famous Five mystery for 9 year olds that starts with a long weekend off school and quickly lands them on a lonely moor after dark.

What happens

Julian and Dick have got two extra days at half-term, because two boys at their school have won scholarships. So Julian writes to Anne and George with a plan. A proper hike over the moors, the loneliest parts he can find, staying at farmhouses and little inns.

It starts like the best kind of picnic. A woman in a village shop makes them a mountain of sandwiches (eight each!) and throws in her home-made fruit cake. Timmy finds a hill crawling with rabbits and goes completely mad.

Then he gets stuck down a rabbit hole and comes out limping.

George won't take another step until someone has looked at his leg. So the Five split up. Julian goes with George and Timmy to find a man who knows about animals, while Dick and Anne go on ahead to book the farmhouse for the night.

In the rain and the dark they lose their way, and wild bells start clanging out across the moor. What are they for? Nobody tells them (though they did hear earlier that there's a big prison on the moor).

Then a deaf old woman in a lonely cottage hides Anne in a loft, because her son mustn't know anyone's there. And in the middle of the night someone taps at Dick's barn window and whispers his name.

This is the Five at their cosiest and creepiest at once. Pork sandwiches on a heathery hilltop, then a proper shiver down the back of your neck. If your reader loves the build-up as much as the mystery, they'll be very happy.

Be ready for one thing. This one shows its age. Julian tells George that girls have to be taken care of, and that he'll count her as a boy who needs an eye kept on him. George laughs and gives in. Some children sail past it. Others will want to argue with the page, which isn't a bad thing.

The night at the cottage is genuinely spooky too, with Anne alone up a little staircase and a bad-tempered son she's told to keep away from. Fine for most readers who've enjoyed the earlier books, but maybe not one to finish at bedtime with a nervous child.

What to read next

If they finish wanting more of the Five, Five Have A Wonderful Time parks them in two old caravans opposite a crumbling castle, right next to a fair with a fire-eater and a man who can bend himself anywhere.