11th January 2025

The Secret Seven come into possession of a Telescope, and as well as spying on their neighbours finally get to visit the Enid Blyton classic venue of a ruined castle.

As I read through the Secret Seven novels I’m more and more convinced that they are terrible children.

They bully Susie relentlessly, and I am almost always finding her a much more sympathetic character than I think I’m meant to be.

The boys in particular are really sexist again in this story, which is a weird counter to how other women in this story are presented. But the girls are even joining in with the sexism in order to hate Susie even more. It’s bizarre, especially with the knowledge of how girls are treated in later Blyton novels.

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28th December 2024

The seven reappear for another Bonfire Night. My copy is from the 90s so the currency at least has been decimalised, and I don’t know if that means other changes have been made too.

It’s just a bit of a nothing. There’s the usual conflict with Susie (who as an adult I increasingly identify with), biscuits for Scamper, sexism against the girls in the group.

But the plot is just a string of coincidences - it doesn’t feel like there’s any agency on behalf of the main characters that helps it along (with maybe one small exception right near the start), and this makes it a disappointing mystery.

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3rd August 2024

The 22nd adventure for the Three Investigators sees them set to unravel a series of riddles left in a contested will.

It’s one that I remember better than others from my childhood, probably due to the distinctly British flavour of the riddles, which gave me something of an advantage over the characters for once.

I really enjoyed revisiting it, and seeing such a well put-together mystery despite the intended audience of children. The plot likely wouldn’t work today with the availability of the internet, but the 1970s setting doesn’t to me feel unimaginably long ago, though might to a younger audience.

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1st June 2024

Looking for something short to read, I grabbed this mystery from my shelf to revisit. While I’ve read it before, I didn’t remember this one at all, so it was fun to see the adventure play out.

As is standard for the Three Investigators, something creepy is going on, and then something criminal.

The plot is a bit convoluted, and the creepiness over surprisingly early, but overall I enjoyed it as a little adventure.

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12th November 2023

The 3 Investigators, now in the middle of their series of adventures, head away from their usual haunts on a camping trip, and to visit a cousin of their friends/employees.

It’s a classic mystery story where there’s a lot going on and a lot to investigate, with homemade technology, shifty characters all over the place, and an element of the supernatural to freak things up a bit.

I felt that some of the elements were maybe a tad too obvious, but then I have to remember the target audience haven’t been reading mysteries for anything like as long as me, and these are serving to introduce them to the genre.

A good contribution to the series.

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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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4th November 2023

Book ten sees the Secret Seven confronted with a brief mystery at the end of what almost feels like some sort of social commentary without a moral at the end. I remembered barely anything of it from reading it as a child.

It’s a weird entry in the series because the mystery is almost the third plot, after the social one and the continued bickering with the group’s nemesis, Susie.

I felt slightly uncomfortable reading it, because there’s a very clear class divide, and although it’s not treated in a negative way it does feel like there could be a tad more sensitivity in presentation, and indeed more support provided by the state rather than relying on kindly middle class farming families.

Additionally my copy has clearly been altered from the original - it’s from the 1990s and has decimal currency throughout - so I can’t help thinking that the narrative might have originally been different, and again might be different now.

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