The Island of Adventure (The Adventure Series)

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Dinah Mannering: Philip's younger sister of about twelve at the beginning of the series. Like her brother, she has a tuft of hair standing up atop her head, but she shares neither his gift in attracting, nor his love for, animals, especially the small creeping types (mice, insects, snakes etc.). Temperamental as she is, she often finds herself the target of her brother's teasing, but otherwise she is quite level-headed, tough, intelligent and grown-up for her age. 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. TV films of the first two books, The Island of Adventure and The Castle of Adventure, were made in the UK in 1982 and 1990 respectively. There was also a New Zealand TV series in the 1990s but that was only very loosely based on the original books. Adventure Series Books

I have heard it said that The Island of Adventure starts slowly, and perhaps it does. But I think it's very nicely written, full of colorful detail and interesting characters, and the setting of Craggy-Tops, where Philip and Dinah live, is excellent. I suspect that, as far as this series goes, the first of the eight books is probably only slow when compared to the others – but reading this fresh (and barely remembering a single thing from my childhood) I feel the slow start is necessary to draw the characters and setting before plunging us deep into action. But then again, a young reader probably has a shorter attention span than me, so... 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. :) 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.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. Bill Cunningham: An important member (holding the rank of inspector) of an unspecified secret service force (possibly based upon the British Secret Intelligence Service). His most prominent bodily feature is his half-bald head. He meets the children upon their very first adventure and makes regular appearances in the series from that point on. Mostly the children get tangled up in adventures which are connected with Bill's work at the time and end up solving them for him. A film based on the book was released in the United Kingdom in 1982. It was directed by Anthony Squire and stars Norman Bowler as Bill, Wilfrid Brambell as Uncle Jocelyn and Eleanor Summerfield as Aunt Polly. [1] There was also a New Zealand television series, in which the first episode is based on The Island of Adventure.

Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.17 Openlibrary OL10496710M Openlibrary_edition I am glad Phillip and Dinah's aunt and uncle are phased out of the series in the later books. I found them a little unremarkable (much like George's parents in the Five books) and got in the way of the story rather than enhancing it. They did provide a few convenient impediments, such as keeping Jo-Jo busy while the children ran off, and providing maps of the underground mines and secret passages. However other than that they didn't really add much to the story. Possibly Blyton made them that way on purpose, and didn't develop their characters because she knew that was going to be their only appearance in the series.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. 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.