2nd August 2025

Jennings and Derbishire get up to their usual adventures in this boarding school novel from the 1970s (although my copy has the 1990s updates, one of which possibly got missed leading to an odd situation where lemonade turns into orange squash).

This time it all starts out when their tennis racquets are broken, which sets into play a sheep rescue, amongst other comedy twists.

I don't feel like this has retained all the magic of the early novels in the series, and shows perhaps more antagonism between the boys than usual.

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12th November 2023

Book 19 of the Jennings series once again sees a varied set of events which tie together into mishap and misunderstanding. Not however one that I have any memory of from when I would have last read it as a child.

Possibly more holistic than some of the other novels, this one is structured around the rescue of a hibernating hedgehog, who plays a role throughout.

The story comes together well, although some aspects of the middle seem to lack payoff, and I’m not sure that they add enough comedy value without that.

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27th August 2023

Jennings and his friends return for another set of chaotic adventures caused by misunderstanding and/or wilful misinterpretation of rules and instructions.

This feels like a perfectly workable entry to the series. The plot comes together nicely into the usual three-act structure, with excellent foreshadowing and callbacks.

But it just doesn’t quite have the energy and hilarity that I found in the previous story - Jennings in Particular - which felt one of the best.

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16th July 2023

I’ve been slowly re-reading this series from my childhood over the past decade and a half, and this is one of the most enjoyable.

These are the tales of JCT Jennings, a boarding school third-former in an indeterminate mid-20th century decade. My copy is from the 80s and had been updated with decimalisation and probably other tweaks.

The three act structure that marks the series continues to be present, and ties together really well into an overall series of comedic entertainment which really kept me hooked.

Probably my favourite of the series.

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11th October 2020

It’s been a while since my last trip to Linbury in my re-read of the Jennings series, but this was a welcome visit to the sixteenth novel.

This is an absolute classic of the series, in which everything adds up and ties together, with the distinct episodes clearly linked into one overall narrative, possibly in the best way of the series so far.

It’s funny, it’s silly, and it all make such perfect sense from the point of view of the ten-year-old main character.

I really enjoyed this re-read.

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29th July 2018

The fifteenth Jennings story sees the foundation of the Jennings Membership Club - along with a variety of other mishaps that leave Jennings and his friends in various quantities of trouble with the school staff. It’s one of the stories that I read as a child but not one with a plot that particularly well stuck in my memory, so it was a delight to re-read.

As usual, many of the problems of Jennings’ young life and initiated through not thinking about long-term consequences, poor communication, or just unfortunate misunderstandings. The book portrays a delightful world of a boarding school from history, that is perhaps only half close to reality.

Some of the storylines do seem very familiar - the sort of thing that might have happened at my own school (vastly less posh that Linbury Court though it was) - and I’ve always enjoyed how this makes the antics of Jennings and Co very believable despite some of the more outlandish repercussions.

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19th August 2016

The fourteenth Jennings novels sees us join the pupils at Linbury Court as their lost property cupboard is overflowing, the school Christmas concert approaches, and the school cook has left.

I can see this being a very funny story to a younger reader, but as an adult everything seemed a little bit too predictable and cringeworthy to actually make me laugh.

Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed another visit to the world of Jennings and to a story that I barely remembered from my younger self's readings - but it's probably not one of the best books in the series.

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