Five Fall into Adventure

Enid Blyton's Five Fall into Adventure is a Famous Five mystery for 9 year olds about a burglary at Kirrin Cottage and a scruffy girl who can spit a plum stone further than anyone.

What happens

It's the ninth Famous Five book. The cousins are back at Kirrin for just two weeks, and Uncle Quentin and Aunt Fanny are off on holiday to Spain. Aunt Fanny is quite sure nothing can possibly happen. (She's wrong, obviously.)

On the beach they meet Jo. She's barefoot, grubby and very cheeky, and she plonks herself straight down in George's sand hole. She and George look so alike (same curls, same freckles, same scowl) that Julian bursts out laughing. George is NOT amused.

Then things get creepy. Anne wakes in the night and sees a face at the window. The next night Timmy comes in from his last walk looking sheepish and sleeps like a log. By the morning Uncle Quentin's study has been turned upside down and the safe is open.

Julian had locked up very carefully. So how did the burglar get in? And who drugged Timmy?

You're right there with the four of them trying to work it out, while the police tramp about and Joan the cook happily hands round coffee. Jo is the best bit, though. She's rude and funny, she can win Timmy over with a little puppy whine, and George can't stand her. Dick feels sorry for her, and your reader might too.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

This is an old book and it shows. Jo is described as gipsy-like, and that word is a slur against Gypsy and Traveller people. When Anne describes the face at the window she wonders if it was a black man's face, a racist line that nobody in the story questions.

There's some real sadness in Jo's life too. Her mother has died, and she says she's had worse bruises from her dad than the one Dick gave her.

If your reader would find any of that upsetting or confusing, this is a good one to read together so you can talk it through. If they're happy with an old-fashioned mystery and a chat along the way, there's plenty here to enjoy.

What to read next

If Jo's circus family has them curious, Five Go Off in a Caravan has the cousins camping near a travelling circus. There they make friends with Nobby, a boy who turns cartwheels and lives with his scowling uncle.