As a child I read all the famous 5 books avidly and so did many of my friends.
Being girls we all wanted to be George who is a tomboy and quite understood her need not to play with dolls or be called Georgina .
Georgina , or George as she preffered , had 3 cousins and luckily they were all around her own age.
.
In the first book Five on a treasure Island , cousin Julian is 12 .
He has a brother Dick who is 11 (the same age as George) and a sister Anne who is 10.
They are a very middle class family.
George’s father is a scientist .
George’s mothers family used to own the land all around and still own their own house , a farm and t he little Island in the bay which is given to George.
The brothers and sister already go to boarding school and at the end of book 1 when they discover Treasure belonging to George’s family , she is sent to school with Anne.
George always refers to her parents as Mother and Father which seemed strange to my 7 year old ears (my parent were always Mum and Dad).
Ofcourse that is only 4 children and so you may be thinking how can 4 children be the famous five?
Well there is also Timmy the mongrel dog who belongs to George.
George found him the year before book 1 , on the moors when he was a puppy and has to pay a friend to keep him secretly for her as he was a quite destructive puppy and was banished from the house.
He is a very intelligent dog who seems to understand everthing they say.
He is discovered at the end of book 1 and becomes one of the family once again as reward for guarding the children from armed men.
Altogether the Five of them have adventure after adventure ( 21 in all) involving hidden treasure , kidnappings , secret papers and secret tunnels, circus folk and gypsies.
They are very lucky children and can travel around on their own much of the time , George at age 11 is permitted to row her boat alone to her Island through treacherous rocks.
.
The books were written over several decades, starting in 1938 and ending in the late 1950’s or early 60’s and so the language is quite dated.
By the last book in the series the 5 have grown quite old.Julian is about 18 by that time.
The scenarios are exciting and keep you reading right to the end of the book.
There is emphasis on being truthful and loyal throughout the books.
Little snippets of information are squeezed in for instance how to tell stalagmites from stalagtites.
My favourite of the series is Five run away together which is book 3. I was given that book for Christmas when I was 7. I read it over and over and I was 10 before I discovered that there were 20 other books in the series.
Enid Blyton was a teacher for several years and I think really knew children .
Certainly she knew the things which would be important to an 11 year old
would seem trivial to an adult.