Here the book was rendered better because the alienating adults were a cut above usual, and the features of their paradise revealed hidden rewards.

However, to have a wretched individual make accusations against you, and then you not being allowed to defend yourself is not a nice position to be in, especially when your superior seems to use any excuse that comes about to criticise and condemn your actions. The resolution of the twist was very wholesome and made up for what was otherwise one of the grittier adventures in the series. She wrote over 700 books and 2,000 short stories, including favourites such as The Famous Five, The Secret Seven , The Magic Faraway Tree and Malory Towers. Anyway, at book three in our twenty two book Famous Five marathon, I'm not getting bored of the series yet.She has over 600 children's books to her credit, including the Famous Five series, the Secret Seven series, the Naughtiest Girl series - all Hodder - and the Malory Towers and St Clare's series, both available from Hodder on audio. She taught for five years before her 1924 marriage to editor Hugh Pollock, with whom she had two daughters.

I didn't see it coming (apparently Sunshine Seaspray did but she's a bit of a smarty pants when it comes to that sort of thing). Her books have sold over 500 million copies and have been translated into other languages more often than any other children's author. At first, I didn’t like that a character’s nickname was “fatty” in the Mystery series (his initials spell FAT). Did I mention that in addition to the castle (emptied of its gold by the children in book 1) the island has an exposed shipwreck and a cave? The good guys are not really better than the bad guys in this, apart from the actual law-breaking, that is.

This book begins, or reignites if you consider its role in other books, Blyton's love affair with convenient illness. They plan to spend time exploring Kirrin Island but their happiness is spoilt when Aunt Fanny falls ill and has to leave with Uncle Quentin to be treated in a far-off hospital. Julian, Dick and Anne arrive in Kirrin Cottage to stay with George (real name Georgina) for the holidays.

Stick repeatedly tries to poison George's dog Timmy, prompting George to hatch a secret plan to run away to Kirrin Island. These kids would probably grow up into adults where they would marry and cheat and birth the type of kids that they despised when they themselves were children. From this point of view, Julian’s put down, sharp attitude to the Sticks is justified, and their treatment of Edgar (who is about as pleasant as his mother is) makes more sense. However, these days many places have removed them (usually through gunboat diplomacy) but they are a measure to protect a country's manufacturing base. Of course all the adults as fine with unsupervised 11 year old George rowing across open sea and through said rocks with her cousins.Along with her equally awful husband, son and dog, they are hellbent on making life as unpleasant as possible for the five.

Blyton knew how to build mystery and intrigue, and still managed to surprise me with a twist, albeit a sinister one. He takes a lot of control around the Sticks and begins to really take control and organise the Five in a way we haven’t seen before, as they’ve always had the steadying guide of Aunt Fanny in the background. The short chapters are filled with descriptions of food, glorious loaves of bread, ginger beer, tinned pineapples and peaches in sweet juice, sardines, roast chickens, fresh tomatoes, jam tarts, meat pies and treacle tarts.

Enid Blyton's books are beloved the world over and The Famous Five have been the perennial favourite of her fans. And to cap it all, George grows worried that the Sticks plan to poison her dog (there are a good number of threatened and attempted poisonings of Timmy across the series and at least one successful though non fatal attempt). This is one of my favourite books in the series because though the villains are obvious, the crime isn't. Now for a few days the Five have a rather nice time, in the summer sun, even though Aunt Fanny’s mystery illness puts a damper on the proceedings and her illness (which I always thought of as an appendicitis for some reason, because later it is mentioned that she has an operation and because I didn’t know the names for any other illnesses that required operations when I read the book the first time around, it sort of stuck!