Which book is the first of the Famous Five books?

I found the 'naughtiest girl' books pretty amusing when I was about that age. I also got the Narnia books by CS Lewis from my (pretty religious) grandparents and absolutely loved them. The first one, the magician's nephew is particularly good.

My 7 year old dd absolutely loves the Famous Five books - she's read a bout 10 so far (anyone know how many there are in the series?).

Some good follow on tips here - we'll give Secret Seven and Malory Towers a go, I think.

Ps I devoured these books as a child. I wish i had kept them all!

My dd (nearly 6) is addicted to the Naughtiest Girl in the school CDs. I honestly don't know what she makes of these tales of boarding school, midnight feasts etc, but she loves them. Need to introduce some Secret Seven I think

there's a channel 4 documentary coming up shortly it may even be this thursday coming and it follows youngsters left at boarding school for the first time....may be an interesting one to watch!
www.channel4.com/programmes/leaving-home-at-8

My DD (6) is madly into Enid and is constantly telling me what Alma, Darrel and Gwendoline etc are up to. It has made her speech rather old-fashioned and she too is determined to go to boarding school. I asked her the other day where she was planning on getting the 20k necessary for this .

It's mad that the first Mallory Towers book was printed in 1946 but is still captivating little girls over 60 years later. Agree that EB seemed like a complete cow when I watched the BBC3 drama! And I am a bit about some of the characterisation etc. But DD is flying though them and now writing EB style stories herself. (sample sentence "I say, shall we go batheing...")

I thought boarding school sounded great fun too. I liked Enid Blyton's books but when I saw the film of her life on the BBC I was put off her slightly.

Oh I love Enid Blyton, St Clares was the other boarding school series, I so wanted to go to boarding school....

loved reading then to mydd1 when she was around 7 or 8 , again started because heard a cd free from ganny's paper. just be warned that reading out loud, the old fashioned prose sometimes leads you into tricky areas .....my dh was reading and it went something like this...
" I say Dick is super " said Julian to george . " I agree Julain I just love dick" replied george happily....

cue dh rofl and dd saying " i don't why you are laughing daddy"

I cant wait for bump to be born so I can buy all the Enid Blytons...

ah yes.. Kiki the parrot. I remember now... On the cover of one of the books it was definitely a cockatoo, but the description in the books is more like a maccaw (I think)

So it did! I remember that now!

Mountain of Adventure had a proper Bond villan lair built into the side of mountains and stuff.

The cockatoo was in fact Kiki the Parrot. The children were Jack, Lucy Ann, Phillip and Dinah. I cant remember the book order now but I know they started with The Island of Adventure. Other books in the series include Circus of Adventure,Ship of Adventure, Valley of Adventure, Sea of Adventure, Mountain of Adventure. The books currently in print have been edited in parts so better off getting second hand ones from Ebay etc. These books are probably best for slightly older children as actually a bit dark in places!
The Secret series by Enid Blyton is a good one for younger readers (again you will need to get second hand copies as the newer ones are either edited or out of print) The books are from memory The Secret Island The Secret of Spiggy Holes, The Secret of Moon Castle.. there are others but I can't remember them off hand.
My all time favourites are the R Mysteries especially Ring O' Bells Mystery and The Rockingdown Mystery

I still love them, though they are SO quaint. Jolly farmers wives making them 'high tea' and there's always some wild 'gypsy' child following them about!

Secret Seven, Five Find Outers, The 'R' mysteries (Rilloby Fair, Ragamuffin, Rat-a-Tat-Tat etc.). I think Fatty was in the Five Find Outers!

I was a big Blyton fan.

Why did I never read the Adventure stories?

Fatty was the child and Goon was the copper in Five Findouters and Dog.

The kids with the cockatoo were Jack, Phillip, Dinah and someone else in the River of Adventure, teh Mountain of Adventure etc.

PureAs, they were the Valley of Adventure et al series. I think I only had the Valley of... but I absolutely loved it.

They were all called the something of Adventure I think.

There were also a couple of books set on a farm (Cherrytree Farm?) which I enjoyed. One of the boys had a pet squirrel iirc.

Do children still like Enid Blyton today? Actually, I can't see why not given that none of her characters or settings bore any resemblance to my suburban, Scottish, state school upbringing and that didn't bother me.

The adventure series had a cockatoo.

I always preferred these to famous five and secret seven.

Ah policeman was Mr Goon. Not Fatty, who was one of the children involved.

These are the ones I was thinking of.

ROFL at apologising for being 'beastly'