The Island of Adventure (The Adventure Series)

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According to the Index Translationum, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare. urn:lcp:islandofadventur00enid:epub:ae53897a-cae9-4c38-a033-2324c829043b Foldoutcount 0 Identifier islandofadventur00enid Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t0ms4w61r Isbn 0333344073 It can be hard, re-reading childhood favourites (or, in this case, moderately well-liked introductions to series that contain favourites). They never live up to your memories. My favorites are "Castle of Adventure", "Valley of Adventure" (her masterpiece), "Sea of Adventure" and "Circus of Adventure".

Blyton was a prolific author of children's books, who penned an estimated 800 books over about 40 years. Her stories were often either children's adventure and mystery stories, or fantasies involving magic. Notable series include: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, The Five Find-Outers, Noddy, The Wishing Chair, Mallory Towers, and St. Clare's. Following the events in The Ship of Adventure, Bill marries Mrs Mannering and adopts all the children as his own. The children call him Bill Smugs due to the fact that he introduced himself under that alias on their first adventure. Blyton's bad guys are the usual half-brained bunch, with no real air of menace other than their threats of "dealing with interfering kids." Jake has a patch over one eye (a change from the usual scar on the cheek) and Olly... well, I immediately thought of Oliver Hardy: "Well, that's another fine mess you've got us into... " Both Jake and Olly are pretty inept at keeping kids under control, and Joe comes across much more vicious and nasty throughout, and especially at the end. I guess when you're young, reading these books for the first time, the baddies do come across as mean and dangerous... but they really don't seem to pose much of a threat until the end.

I was very pleasantly surprised, on re-reading The Island of Adventure. Yes, the plot is thin, and the characters, while well-sketched, still essentially simplistic. But it's fun - who does't love a good secret tunnel? In particular, it's rather better written than I was expecting, and better than it needed to be, with surprising depth and sympathy even in peripheral characters: I can see why this felt real to me in a way that more overtly childish books did not. While the prose, and in particular the dialogue, are inevitably dated, they're more 'pleasantly old-fashioned' than 'incomprehensible' or 'ridiculous'. I know I'm dating myself here, but kids haven't changed much. Dinners (and breakfast and lunch) are immensely important to the young, and one of the key moments in all the Adventure books always concerns them stumbling over a cache of tinned foods that will (phew!) tide them over until help comes. The days go by. Some trivia: Jo-Jo's "queer beliefs" become "strange beliefs" in the 1988 edition. And the word "to-morrow" loses its hyphen. Aunt Polly is at first dismayed at seeing the two extra visitors, but is slowly convinced by Kiki and Mr Roy. I'm not going into the details; it's all there in the book. :)

Here's what Philip says in 1944: "Jo-Jo, put that trunk in the car too. It belongs to my two friends." The end of the adventure is nail-biting stuff. The two boys along with Bill Smugs are in danger of being shot and later drowned alive, and then must find a very risky method of escape. All this ensures nobody could dream of putting the book down during the final two chapters. A very good beginning to arguably Blyton's best Adventure/Mystery series of all. Review by Harikrishnan Menon (added December 12, 2005) Note: The following synopsis contains spoilers. If you haven't read the book, you may not want to read this. I've put comments on language changes and other oddities as I went along, because I thought it would make more sense if these are seen in context.When Bill buys a plane, he decides to take the four children for a holiday, but events at the airport lead to the four getting into the wrong plane. When the plane lands they find themselves in an unfamiliar valley scarred by war and, once again, the four children fall into an adventure involving a lost treasure sought by a band of villains.

In short, The Island of Adventure serves to whet your appetite for a nice juicy main course – which comes in the form of Castle and Valley. Dulu pas SMP dipinjemin seri Petualang ini tapi yang vol.6 ...dan karena waktu itu juga sudah baca Lima Sekawan, STOP, dan Trio Detektif, rasa-rasanya keempat tokoh utama di seri ini jadi kurang meninggalkan kesan~ Bill Smugs is an almost shady-sounding but likeable character – you spend much of the book trying to decide whether he is good or bad – and is one of the few characters that Blyton writes in this half-and-half manner. Most of her bad guys are obvious at first mention, and the good guys also stand out. Bill obviously turns out to be a good guy, and his strange behaviour is explained, but he does keep you guessing. This time I read them in German and in English and compare them chapter for chapter to find the differences in the German translation. Fortunately I have old versions of these books in German and in English (I bought all 8 books in English on my first trip to the UK in 1981 at Foyle's in London). Later versions were often modernized to make them politically correct (which I hate as that's not what I remember reading when I was a child).Thanks to a German friend at elementary school I discovered Enid Blyton's Adventure series and Famous Five series in the fall of 1965 and reread them from time to time even now in my sixties. The stories show the four children off on their own, discovering and solving mysteries without much adult assistance. Although the publication dates span a decade, Blyton reportedly wrote each of the novels in less than a week.