Five Go Adventuring Again

Five Go Adventuring Again by Enid Blyton is a Christmas holiday mystery for 9 year olds, and it opens with the worst news a child can get in the last week of term.

What happens

Anne and George are at breakfast at school when the letter arrives. Anne's mother has scarlet fever. Nobody is going home.

So it is Kirrin Cottage again, with George's mother, George's rather frightening father, and Timothy the dog, who is thrilled about all of it.

There is a catch. Julian and Dick have been off school ill twice this term, so a tutor has been hired for the holidays. George has to do the lessons too.

Anne, who has a good report, offers to join in sometimes to keep her company. George says thanks, she will have Timmy.

Then Uncle Quentin comes back from the interviews looking pleased with himself. He had nearly chosen someone else when a fourth man arrived in a rush, saying he had only just seen the advertisement.

This one is older. He has wonderful letters of recommendation. And he already knew about Uncle Quentin and the secret book he is finishing, the one with an idea in it the country is going to want.

Your reader will work out roughly where this is going a long time before the children do, which is a good deal of the fun. Then the snow comes down, the sea round Kirrin Island turns too rough to row across, and everyone is shut in the house together with Mr Roland.

What it is really like to read is a cosy sort of tension. Buns and a big cake at teatime. The pony trap on frosty roads. Timothy not allowed in the kitchen except at dinner. And under all that, someone in the house who is not what he says he is.

George is the reason these books still work. She will not answer to Georgina, she goes red and quiet when she feels left out, and she would rather lose the argument than lose the dog.

The writing shows its age in places. Julian is twelve and rather in charge, the girls are treated differently from the boys, and George being "very like a boy" is written as a fact about her hair and her ways. Most children read straight past it. If your reader tends to notice that sort of thing, it is worth being ready to talk about.

What to read next

This is the second time the cousins meet up, and that first summer keeps getting mentioned. Five on a Treasure Island is where the four of them and Timothy actually start, with a shipwreck and a map, so it is the one to read first if order matters in your house.