The Island of Adventure

Adventure #1

by Enid Blyton

First of the 'Adventure' Series. Philip and Dinah Mannering and their new friends Jack and Lucy-Ann Trent — along with Jack's irrepressible talking parrot, Kiki — are spending their summer holiday at Craggy-Tops, an ancient, half-ruined house by the sea. Before long, they are drawn to the mysterious Isle of Gloom in the distance and are determined to find a way to get there and explore it. But gradually it becomes apparent that the island may not be as deserted as it's supposed to be. Who is signalling from the island to the mainland at night? What is going on in the abandoned copper mines beneath the island? And what does the friendly yet enigmatic Bill Smugs know about it all? The four children find themselves caught up in an adventure more thrilling — and dangerous — than they could have imagined.

Genres: Childrens, Adventure, Fiction, Mystery, Classics, Middle Grade, Young Adult

350 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1944

About the author

See also:
Ένιντ Μπλάιτον (Greek)
Enida Blaitona (Latvian)
Энид Блайтон (Russian)
Inid Blajton (Serbian)
Інід Блайтон (Ukrainian)

Enid Mary Blyton (1897–1968) was an English author of children's books.

Born in South London, Blyton was the eldest of three children, and showed an early interest in music and reading. She was educated at St. Christopher's School, Beckenham, and - having decided not to pursue her music - at Ipswich High School, where she trained as a kindergarten teacher. She taught for five years before her 1924 marriage to editor Hugh Pollock, with whom she had two daughters. This marriage ended in divorce, and Blyton remarried in 1943, to surgeon Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters. She died in 1968, one year after her second husband.

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.

According to the Index Translationum, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare.

See also her pen name Mary Pollock

Reviews

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the 1st in a series of 8 books that I've read many times during my childhood.
Used to get them at the library every summer, sometimes I read them in order, sometimes not, it didn't really matter, I enjoyed them whatever way I read them.
To be honest, it wasn't reading, it was sharing the adventures with the characters, they did get into some predicaments, ones we all dreamed about getting into ourselves as kids in real life!
I got the boxed set for Christmas when I was 40, I read them again. Again when I was 50 and yes, I'll read them again someday.
They bring me back to endless summer days of innocence, leading a sheltered, protected life and turning pages and getting lost in exciting adventure with my 4 friends. I think revisiting these books from time to time has had a hand in keeping me young at heart.

Someday is here! Read The Island of Adventure, yet again!
I don't think I'll ever out grow this book, or the rest of the series.
Not as long as I have a sense of adventure in my heart!

[Dannii Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first instalment in the Adventure series.

I was craving comfort and found it in the form of this fun and adventurous children's tale. Blyton is an author I am well-acquinted with, but this series in particular was not one I had previously read, as a child, so was missing some of the nostalgia connected to her other works. I enjoyed it no less for that, though.

[Jake Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Adventure series is brilliant - Enid Blyton at her absolute best. It's like the Famous Five series but much more hard-core. Jack, Philip, Dinah and Lucy-Ann constantly find themselves in extreme survival situations that would probably make the Five decide to cut their losses and take their own lives. Usually (although not in this particular instalment) the children get themselves trapped in some godforsaken foreign country for months on end with apparently no feasible way of ever escaping. This means, of course, that this particular gang of adventurers is regularly forced to endure life with no ginger beer or glistening pink ham for several months at a time, which is surely a situation that would see the Five dead within a week!

The Island of Adventure is not the very best book in this series, but it still deserves five stars for the precedents it sets in terms of characterisation, settings and perilous situations. Jack, Philip and Lucy-Ann draw us immediately into a daring bit of adult-defying trickery that kicks off the adventure with just the right tone, and Kiki the parrot is hilarious from the very first page. The mystery surrounding "Bill Smugs" in his tumbledown shack is also a highlight of this one.

Fans of the series coming back to read this book after a few years may be surprised to find that Philip and Dinah's mother (one of the two prominent adults in this series) has only one line here, marvelling at the size of Bill's overflowing Thermos. This seems to set a suitable tone for the subsequent development of their relationship.

[Tom Seward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enid Blyton is an amazing childrens author, bestselling in the world. Although almost undiscovered by Americans.

This series (The Adventure Series is 8 books long) Features 4 friends who fall into adventures with counterfeiters, gunrunners, treasure hunters and the like. Jack, Philip, Diana, and Lucy-Anne and their crazy talking parrot, KIKI, are a lot of fun to follow through their adventures... This series is top notch reading... introduce your children to Enid Blyton today!

[Deity World · Rating 4 out of 5]

The start of a new Enid Blyton series so far this one reminds me a lot of the famous five and their adventures only difference is there’s no dog but a parrot, Kiki makes me laugh

[CLM · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review: https://perfectretort.blogspot.com/20...

The first and perhaps most memorable of Blyton's Adventure series - starring Dinah and her brother Philip (and his assorted animals), Jack and his wimpy sister Lucy-Ann, and Kiki the Parrot. No one who has read this book will forget the perilous descent into a dark well, relying on metal staples for grip. Fusty, musty, dusty!

[Helen Yeomans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across this book from my youth and decided to re-read it to see if it stands up.

It does. Enid Blyton apparently wrote more than 700 books for children, but I always thought you could keep your Noddys and your Famous Fives; the Adventure series was my favourite. I liked the two sets of siblings, Phillip and Dinah, and their friends Jack and Lucy Ann. And Kiki the parrot is still good for a laugh or two. The adults, especially Bill Smugs, were always around when you needed them but conveniently absent otherwise.

I've since taken out three more in the series. And reading them I notice something I always enjoyed about other kids' books--for example, Wind in the Willows, Swallows and Amazons--the importance of food.

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.

Who can forget Ratty's glorious repast on that spring day on the river bank ("coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwiches
pottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater—") or Toad's first meal after being thrown in jail ". . . and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in great golden drops. . ."

The Adventure kids don't as a rule get into that level of culinary delight, but when they're sitting around the cave floor (or whatever) tucking into spam and pineapple chunks, you can still relate. And if I'm not mistaken, in one of the books, all the tins are unlabelled, which is even more fun.

This series is fine for children 8-12, in my view. It's not wholly scrubbed clean: Bill lights a cigarette in one spot. But a little perspective never hurt anyone.

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first in a series of eight books detailing the adventures of a group of children and their avian companion, The Island of Adventure (first published in 1944) introduces young readers to Philip and Dinah Mannering, Jack and Lucy-Ann Trent, and Kiki the parrot. When Jack and Lucy-Ann come to stay with Philip and Dinah at Craggy-Tops - their aunt and uncle's home on the rugged Cornwall coast - the four children are soon caught up in an exciting mystery involving the nearby Isle of Gloom. Who is responsible for the strange lights that Jack sees one night, first from a ship along the coast, and then on the cliffs near Craggy-Tops? Who's been on the Isle of Gloom, despite its reputed inaccessibility, and what have they been doing in the old abandoned copper mines there? And what does it all have to do with Bill Smugs, the children's new friend...?

Begun last year, after I learned that the author - whose books are largely unknown in the United States - is the sixth-most popular author in the world, my "Enid Blyton Project" has thus far included the fifteen-volume Five Find-Outers and Dog series, a few of the Noddy books, and the first installment of The Famous Five series. But The Island of Adventure is without a doubt the most enjoyable Blyton I have read thus far. An exciting plot, and engaging characters, make me wish I had access to the next seven in the Adventure Series. I'm finally beginning to get an inkling as to why Blyton, whose writing is mostly mediocre, is so beloved. She keeps the reader wanting more.

[Elina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kaipasin kevyempää kesäkirjaa ja tämä osui Bookbeatista silmiin. Taattua "viisikkolaatua", mutta kevyestä en tiedä, koska keskellä yötä tulin jännittävään loppuratkaisukohtaan, jota ei voinut jättää kesken ja oli vähän valvottava ja kuunneltava loppuun, koska niin kuumottavat hetket oli käsillä. Oikein mainio seikkailu!

En ole lukenut nyt vanhempana näitä vanhoja kirjoja, mutta heti pisti silmään (eli korvaan) se, että tytöt on tyttöjä ja pojat poikia. Tytöt siivoaa, tekee kotityöt, hoitaa sairaat, pelkää ja itkee. Pojat seikkailee, laiskottelee, purjehtii ja virnistää, kun oikeasti itkettäisi.

[Sherwood Smith]

I am afraid to reread these books again--I started to ten or fifteen years back, and was appalled at how dead cliche they were. But when I was ten, they were the most riveting and exciting books I'd ever found, and I adored them. Blyton mastered the formula of establishing character types, so that the kid reader can easily recognize characters and motivations, gets the adults conveniently out of the way, and lets the kids have the adventure and solve things. The prose is instantly accessible, the humor really taps into what is funny to kids.

[Rogerio · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is typical Enid Blyton stile and has a striking similarity with the Famous 5 story where they go to the island for the first time. It is actually 5 once more (4 kids and 1 parrot), on school holidays, 2 kids visiting other 2 kids, secret passages, bandits, etc. It is a good story to read, however, if you read the Famous 5 this book comes across as not being very creative and a sort of "more of the same".
The cavalry gets there in the end :).

[Guguk · Rating 4 out of 5]

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~

Setelah sekian abad berlalu, beberapa tahun lalu aku nemu buku ini, "Woh! Volume pertamanya!"~ dan setelah dibaca, rasanya kesan yang aku dapat dulu itu salah.., atau bisa jadi memang wajar beda kesan karena beda bukunya (*/▽＼*) tapi maksudku, di sini dikisahkan kegemaran Philip dalam mengumpulkan binatang-binatang kecil dan memasukkannya ke dalam baju 'berkawan' dengan hewan, Dinah, adiknya yang galak (keduanya suka tabok-tabokan ^^;; tipe berantem antar saudara yang akrab), lalu ada Jack yang penggemar burung dan selalu membawa Kiki si burung kakaktua, serta Lucy-Ann, adik Jack yang sangat sayang kakak dan kaget melihat jenis perkelahian yang ditampilkan Philip dan Dinah.

Jenis petualangannya 11-12 dengan Lima Sekawan (((o(*°▽°*)o))) yang artinya: Lorong Rahasia! Gua Persembunyian! Harta!! (✧ω✧) ...atau minimal sesuatu yang berharga [̲̅Rp(̲̅ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°̲̅)̲̅✧]
Waktu SD, cita-cita aku dan teman-temanku (sesama pembaca Lima Sekawan) adalah menemukan harta di suatu tempat rahasia yang bisa dilewati dari bawah tanah~ Cita-cita ini kandas begitu saja ( ◡‿◡ )

Membaca buku ini di usia tuaku //gakusahkelewatjujurguk sekarang serasa membangkitkan sesuatu yang sudah kering dan berdebu (´,,•ω•,,) Mungkin cita-cita yang belum kesampaian itu? Atau mungkin hanya 'aroma' masa kecil yang kelewat bahagia (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

[Zweiundvierzig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buch II meiner Ausflugsreihe in die Anfangszeit meiner Lese-Erfahrungen.

Wie bei den „Drei ???“ ist es total lustig, noch mal da anzuknüpfen, wo die ersten Leseversuche starteten.
Anders als bei den „Drei ???“ ist es hier etwas sperriger, wieder einzutauchen, vielleicht / vermutlich, weil die Erzählweise natürlich noch mal „angestaubter“ ist als bei dem „Hitchcock“.

Nicht alle Formulierungen und Stereotypen würden heute so verwendet, und möglicherweise macht‘s das genau deshalb teilweise etwas arg „aus der Zeit gefallen“. Wenn‘s bei Kästners „Fliegendes Klassenzimmer“ charmant, die „alten“ Bilder zu beschwören, so ist‘s hier (gerade wenn‘s um Jo-Jo geht) etwas seltsam anmutend.

Dennoch ist das Buch natürlich ein Kinder-Klassiker und sollte mit „den damaligen Augen“ gelesen werden.

[Lauren McMurray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent mystery for mid and upper elementary; good vocabulary, clear good/evil, exciting story, engaging characters. I’d highly recommend her books for avid young readers—my son devoured them.

My 9 year old had read two of Enid Blyton’s series earlier this year. As I read last Sunday afternoon, he excitedly checked in with my progress to see if I’d come to such and such part etc.
Though nearly five months had passed since he’d completed the book, the plot and characters had stayed fresh and captivating to him—and that’s mixed in with at least twenty other lengthy chapter books he’s read these past five months.

[Angela Priebbenow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enid Blyton’s adventure series is simply fabulous. I hadn’t read this in many years, so it was good to remember how it all started.

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Enid Blyton hooks as a child: Famous Five; Malory Towers; Faraway Tree and enjoyed reading the latter to my children when young. But I had never read the Adventure Series until now thanks to a friend lending me a box set.
I did enjoy this romp back to a time without mobile phones and other such technology, with child characters who loved the outdoors and using their imagination, stumbling upon mysterious goings on upon the way.

[Wastrel · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

But sometimes, it can be a unexpected pleasure. You know it won't live up to your memories, and so your expectations can be low, and easily surpassed.

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'.

The gender assumptions of the era are actually less problematic than you might expect (although certainly not absent) - although the girls tend to be more sensible than the boys, they feel like individuals, and the assumptions feel, for the most part, more like a realistic depiction of children in the 1940s than like dogma handed down from the author. Indeed, one of the girls is the most aggressive of the four by far (the other's timidity is depicted as more the result of her younger age, and obvious trauma, than of her gender). What dates the novel more than the sexual politics is simply the awfulness of the past: the world of these (orphaned and semi-orphaned, unwanted) children is shockingly, hilariously grimdark, even before the continual, nightmarish safeguarding issues that will make any modern parent shudder every second or third page kick in.

And then there's the casual racism. There's some genuine room for debate on Blyton's intentions in this regard; by the end, much of what seems at first to be casual racism from Blyton is revealed to have been Blyton's assumption of, and attempting manipulation of, the reader's own casual racism; and so I'd be reluctant to start burning effigies purely on the evidence of this book.

However, anyone thinking of giving it to modern children (not a terrible idea, although it's probably one where parents might want to talk over some issues with children as they read (SAFEGUARDING!)) should probably buy a modern edition. These replace casually stereotyped black man Jo-jo with mere working-class Joe; I'm not normally a fan of retrospective censorship by editors, but in this case it seems like a no-brainer - in part because of the intended audience of children, and in part simply because the change is so obvious, so straightforward, and such an improvement, while having no substantial impact on the plot or themes of the novel, that it seems difficult to justify not making it. As for the idea of preserving Blyton's original intent - I'm sympathetic, but times and moved on, and the cultural context against which Blyton constructed the character no longer exists. There comes a point where 'subversion' of a bigoted belief becomes, with the decay of the original belief, a mere 'reintroduction' of that belief - teaching children a bunch of hateful stereotypes about black people only to THEN suggest they question those stereotypes now seems regressive, even if its original intent was subversive.

So buy a modern edition (unlike mine). And, if you do, set your expectations impartially low, try to tolerate the occasional out-of-date ejaculation, and enjoy.

If you want to read my thoughts on the book in greater depth, my full review is up on my blog.

[Πάνος Τουρλής · Rating 4 out of 5]

Η Enid Blyton (1897-1968) πραγματικά δε χρειάζεται συστάσεις. Είναι η συγγραφέας που μας χάρισε αξέχαστες στιγμές ανάγνωσης και μας σύστησε ευρηματικές παρέες παιδιών που ζουν περιπέτειες, λύνουν μυστήρια, ταξιδεύουν, κινδυνεύουν και χάρη σ’ αυτούς περνούσαν ευχάριστα και όμορφα οι εξωσχολικές μας ώρες. Ποιος δεν έχει διαβάσει τους Μυστικούς 7 ή τους 5 φίλους, ποιο κορίτσι δεν έχει ονειρευτεί το Σεν Κλερ ή το Μάλορυ Τάουερ; Έτσι λοιπόν οι εκδόσεις Μίνωας επανακυκλοφορούν τη σειρά «Περιπέτεια» ξεκινώντας από την αρχή. Φύγαμε για «Περιπέτεια στο νησί»;

Μια σειρά από ασθένειες έκαναν τον δεκατετράχρονο Φίλιπ Μάνερινγκ να χάσει τα περισσότερα μαθήματα κι έτσι, με προτροπή των θείων του, για ν’ αναπληρώσει τον χαμένο χρόνο, περνάει τώρα το καλοκαίρι του μ’ έναν από τους δασκάλους του. Στην παρέα τους ευτυχώς προστίθεται ο συνομήλικος ορφανός Τζακ Τρεντ, που ονειρεύεται να γίνει ορνιθολόγος, με τον παπαγάλο του, την Κίκι, και τη μικρότερη αδελφή του, Λούσι-Ανν, οπότε τα πράγματα απέκτησαν περισσότερη πλάκα. Μια αναποδιά στο τέλος των μαθημάτων φέρνει τους Τρεντ στο σπίτι του νέου τους φίλου και της δωδεκάχρονης αδελφής του, Ντάινα, στο σπίτι τους στο Κράγκι Τοπς της Κορνουάλης. Έτσι ξεκινάει η θρυλική σειρά με τα τέσσερα παιδιά και τον παπαγάλο τους που για πρώτη περιπέτεια καλούνται να λύσουν τις μυστηριώδεις λάμψεις που φαίνονται στο δυσπρόσιτο και έρημο Νησί του Σκότους, να καταλάβουν τον πραγματικό ρόλο ενός μυστηριώδους φίλου που μένει απομονωμένος, να κάνουν διάφορες φάρσες στον γενικών καθηκόντων Τζο, που δεν τα συμπαθεί καθόλου κ. ά.

Συναρπαστικές αναλυτικές περιγραφές, εκτεταμένοι διάλογοι που δίνουν ζωηρότητα και ρεαλισμό στην ιστορία, ανατροπές και εκπλήξεις κι ένα μυστήριο που όλο και πυκνώνει από σελίδα σε σελίδα, κωμικοτραγικές εξελίξεις που με διασκέδασαν και ταυτόχρονα με γέμισαν αγωνία για τη συνέχεια, έμφαση σε έννοιες όπως η αγάπη προς τα ζώα, η φιλία, η έννοια του κακού μέσα από μια όσο γίνεται πιο ωραιοποιημένη εικόνα και πολλά άλλα χαρακτηριστικά γνωρίσματα της αγαπημένης συγγραφέως εκατομμυρίων παιδιών είναι μερικά από τα χαρακτηριστικά που με κράτησαν ως το τέλος.

Πάντως, μου έκαναν εντύπωση οι σχεδόν πρωτόγονες καταστάσεις στον μισογκρεμισμένο πύργο των Τρεντ, του οποίου οι ένοικοι ζούσαν χωρίς ζεστό και κρύο νερό, χωρίς ηλεκτρικό, με πολλές δουλειές νοικοκυριού καθημερινά, με το πλύσιμο να γίνεται μια φορά την εβδομάδα και τ’ αγόρια να κοιμούνται στον ψηλό πύργο που δεν είχε παράθυρα! Πάντως στον ελεύθερο χρόνο τους ψάρευαν, κολυμπούσαν, εξερευνούσαν και στην πορεία άρχισαν να εμφανίζονται κάποια περίεργα σημάδια που θα οδηγούσαν τα παιδιά στην πρώτη τους περιπέτεια.

«Περιπέτεια στο νησί» λοιπόν και ξεκινήστε άφοβα να γνωρίσετε μια νέα παρέα μικρών ηρώων που θα σας συναρπάσει χάρη σε μια πένα που ξέρει τι ζητάνε οι μικροί αναγνώστες από 8 ετών και πάνω και το προσφέρει απλόχερα και γλαφυρά. Το γεγονός ότι εκδόθηκε το 1944 και εξακολουθεί να είναι στις πρώτες προτιμήσεις παιδιών και γονέων λέει από μόνο του πολλά!

[Christine Mathieu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit that Enid Blyton is one of my guilty pleasures in-between reading novels, (auto)biographies and non-fiction books on WW II.
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.

Way back in the 1960's, in Germany EB's books were unfortunately (and as I believe totally unjustified) banned from school libraries and public librarires. And the kind of books that my parents gave me for birthdays and Christmas were quite often not to my liking, rather boring and tame compared with EB's adventures.

"The Island of Adventure" is IMHO not the best in this series of 8 books, but it's a nice start.
My favorites are "Castle of Adventure", "Valley of Adventure" (her masterpiece), "Sea of Adventure" and "Circus of Adventure".
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).

The English versions have on an avergae 22 more illustrations than the German copies from Erika Klopp Verlag which is a pity!

[Shawne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a fan of Enid Blyton. A HUGE fan. And yes, I have found pleasure beyond rose-tinged nostalgia even re-reading her books as an adult. I suppose there's a reason I never stumbled upon the Adventure series as a child - while Blyton deals fantastically well with boarding school stories and fantasy worlds for children, whether it be fairies and gollywogs, adventure stories seem rather less her forte. And I would hazard a guess that this series is accordingly lesser known than some of her classics.

This first installment in the series does get its motor revving near the end, but there are far too many contrivances of plot for the story to hang together entirely comfortably. The characters feel a little more stereotyped than usual, each one defined by a singular characteristic and struggling hard to make the leap from page to heart. I'm definitely hoping that the rest of the series is an improvement on this first book.

[Jose Santos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uma bela releitura. Não me lembrava nada da história deste primeiro volume da Série Aventura da Enid Blyton. Tinha uma vaga memória da casa e nada mais. Li este livro há mais de 40 anos.
Mas gostei bastante. É claro que tem de ser lido com a noção de que é uma história passada numa outra época e direccionada a um público juvenil que já não existe. Tem mesmo partes um pouco inocentes vista aos "olhos" de hoje.
É um mundo diferente. Felizmente ficaram estes livros nos quais podemos viajar no tempo e deliciarmo-nos com estas histórias.
Uma leitura de conforto.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of books which passed me by as a child so was keen to see what they were about. Book one is a fun start and set in Cornwall is always a winner!

[Priya · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a long time, I finally got to start the adventure series and i felt it was worth it ... the plot is acceptable for a bunch of early teens ... first of all they are not portrayed to be super human kids who can do more than we can imagine... but just a bunch of curious georgies :) acceptable for their age ... and lucky at the end :)

Can wait to continue the series ...

[evangeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a reason she is the Queen of writing children's books, and this book, The Island of Adventure, is a prime example of her sheer talent as an author and ability to capture the imaginations of young people.

[Sams_Fireside · Rating 5 out of 5]

This weekend was hot, far too hot to do anything at all. This is unusual in September in the UK, but there you have it. I needed something easy to read that was going to require zero effort, so I reverted back to my childhood and picked up one of my Enid Blyton books. The Island of Adventure is the first in the Adventure series and one I haven’t read for aeons! I remembered the characters' names, Philip, Dinah, Jack and Lucy-Ann, but that’s all I remembered. I didn’t recall how they met or how their adventures started, so it was like going in as a first-time reader.

The Island of Adventure is fast-paced, exciting and, as the title suggests, adventurous. I love Enid Blyton’s writing, her sense of wit and all her old-fashioned ideals. You know the ones, where women should stay at home and do the housekeeping, the kids should probably be at boarding school and the Dad earns the money. Well, as long as you see past all this - the book was first published in 1946, so just keep that in your head - it’s a brilliant escapism for a few hours. Oh and it’s also full of bad men who lock kids in a cave when they get caught and don’t care if they get lost and starve to death in mines! What isn’t to love! I forgot how I used to read quickly to find out what was going to happen next, and this hasn’t changed. I often skimmed to the end of the page to see if the baddies were going to get away!

From what I can gather from my Bookstagram friends on the other side of the pond, Enid Blyton, although known worldwide, never quite made it across the Atlantic, and I have no idea why, but honestly, I would urge you to introduce yourselves and your children to this amazing author. I promise you won’t regret it.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am currently on a nostalgia binge and rereading (well listening while I do stuff) this Enid Blyton series. (My absolute favourite Blyton series as a child.)

Whilst not my all-time favourite, I loved the Island of Adventure as a child. It was thrilling — strange islands, sinister caves, mysterious men with foreign accents (always villains, naturally. though slight reduction in that bias with the editing for modern "sensitivities".), and a plucky gang of children saving the day. Pure magic.

Rereading it as an adult, I just love that the children are unpaid detectives; that fully trained adult detectives happily include them in their work. Also spoiler alert -that every time they go on holiday, they discover a criminal ring. Makes me feel that sadness I did as a child that the most suspicious thing I found was that the family on the beach left a shovel behind.

As an adult, the whole thing is comedy gold. Sheer cliffs, collapsing caves, secret passages — basically a death trap. Yet the children skip around it as though they’re on a National Trust day out. The criminals are absolutely useless. Christ knows why they haven't been caught already. I mean, if your master plan can be foiled by an 11-year-old and a parrot, you need to rethink your career.

On the subject of the parrot, Kiki is chaos incarnate — shrieking “Wipe your feet!” at tense moments, mimicking gunfire, and generally terrifying hardened criminals. Love it.

[Tim Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was 7 or 8, Enid Blyton was my go-to author - lots of her books had been handed down to me by my sister and various cousins and I devoured them with uncritical enthusiasm. This series, featuring two pairs of siblings, Philip and Dinah and Jack and Lucy-Ann was always one of my favourites, and taken for what it is, it stands up remarkably well. The scenario is cleverly constructed to appeal to children - a remote clifftop house, half-ruined, lots of caves and coves to explore, with the bare minimum of adult supervision. To arrive at this point, the children have to be actual orphans (Jack and Lucy-Ann) or as near as makes no difference (Philip and Dinah) but the potential grimness of the backstory is soon brushed aside as the kids get on with the important business of solving a mystery and foiling the bad guys. This one was published in 1944, and there are, of course, problematic issues, particularly regarding the depiction of Black servant Jo-Jo which would raise more than an eyebrow today (I believe the modern edition replaces Jo-Jo with a white servant which is probably sensible). The boys do most of the heroic stuff while the girls look on admiringly, and a cigarette is not automatically the sign of a ne'er-do-well, interestingly. Even in my day (late 1960s), Enid Blyton was looked upon askance by teachers and librarians (my public library didn't stock her, for example) who thought her books unchallenging in vocabulary and middle-class and snobbish in outlook. All probably true, though I'm willing to bet she was a gateway drug for thousands of lifetime readers. Hard to rate this one - objectively it doesn't deserve more than two stars, for the reasons given, but for guilty enjoyment it gets 4.

[Buchwelten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ein Re-Read aus meiner Kindheit. Im Rahmen einer Challenge habe ich mir dieses Buch ausgesucht. Die Aufgabe war es, ein Buch zu lesen, welches man schon einmal als Kind gelesen hat. Ich war gespannt, wie ich diese Geschichte als Erwachsener empfinden würde, ob ich immer noch begeistert davon sein würde. Wer Enid Blyton kennt, weiß, dass es sehr spannende Abenteuer sind, die die Kinder erleben. Doch am Ende geht es zum Glück immer glimpflich für die Protagonisten aus. So auch in diesem Buch. Aus Erwachsenensicht musste ich zwar hin und wieder den Kopf darüber schütteln, wie unbedacht Kinder doch manchmal handeln, aber dennoch hat mir die Story nach wie vor gefallen. Besonders Papagei Kiki brachte mich immer wieder einmal zum Schmunzeln.

[Nína Guðrún · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was nervous about re-reading Enid Blyton’s books as an adult, because I was afraid that the ‘magic’ of the stories would not be the same or that it would ruin the precious memories associated with her books. That being said, it brought the nostalgia and the adventures, but unfortunately it also disappointed me in some ways. This book was both blatantly racist as well as sexist, and despite me being aware of the fact that it was written in 1944, it bothered me A LOT. Almost to the point of not finishing the book. This book gets 3 stars for the nostalgia and good memories, but I do not plan on continuing to read this series.

[Yasmin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this!
As a child, I only had the second book in this series, and absolutely loved it. So it was great to read, all these years later, the beginnings of the friendship between the children in this first story.
I have to say, these books are like little Indiana Jones books for kids- so full of excitement. And not just for kids either-I was genuinely gripped in certain parts, and I'm 37 years old!!!!
It's a real joy to know that Enid Blyton can still keep me enthralled, even now. Loved her as a kid, love her now. Blyton forever!!!