quick childrens' books question - anyone recognize this?

[smoker]

i figure most whores are in their late teens to mid-thirties, right? so hopefully some of us may have read or had read to us the same books when we were kids.

you had the enid blyton collections, the famous five and the secret seven right, bunch of goody two-shoed kids going round solving crimes and drinking ginger beer with crumpets.

i'm trying to identify a similar set of stories, again involving crime stopping kids, but i don't remember the name of this particular gang. all i know is they had a parrot called kiki for a pet, and one of their mums had a boyfriend in the secret service who'd always save their arses when they got stuck.

can anyone help?

[mook]

I don't know if this is any help..

Adventure Series:  8 books, 1944-1955. Featuring Philip, Dinah, Jack, Lucy-Ann, Bill Smugs and Kiki, a parrot with an attitude.

from here

http://www.logan.com/loganberry/most-blyton.html

[Joy Nktonga]

Also by the Blyton, the Adventure series. "The Mountain of...", The Castle of..." , "The Island of...", and also Valley, Sea, Ship, River and Circus.
The kiddies in it were Philip, Dinah, Lucy-Ann and Jack .

Never read them myself, but loved the ones with the magic tree, "Enchanted Wood", and "Faraway Tree".


Edit: As above but with added titles ;-)

[smoker]

nice one guys, these are the ones, thanks a lot

[elderford]

What about Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys?

[MojoJojo]

Ohhh, I'm going to hijack this for a general discussion on childrens' books.

Anyone remember Fattypuffs and Thinifers? That was ace.

[edit] corrected name

[fanny splendid]

Anyone remember Jocular Jim's Jaunt to Jupiter?

I think it was by Mike Ramsbottom*, but I can't seem to find anything about it?

He also wrote Messy Mike's Mumps and Joan Jett Gets wet

[Gazeuse]

I love the Billy Bunter books by 'Frank Richards.' I still get an odd thrill if I see one for sale in a charity shop. I've read some of them at leat thirty times.

If anyone takes the piss, I'll give them a good licking!!!

[hencole]

Nev loved the ones with the magic tree, "Enchanted Wood", and "Faraway Tree".

They were excellent those books, truly brilliant. The ones with big old 'Moon Face'?

[Joy Nktonga]

They were excellent those books, truly brilliant. The ones with big old 'Moon Face'?

Yeah, those are the ones. Can't really remember much about them now. My little ones are about the right age to enjoy these I reckon, so that's the perfect excuse to get them and read them again.

[smoker]

I love the Billy Bunter books by 'Frank Richards.' I still get an odd thrill if I see one for sale in a charity shop. I've read some of them at leat thirty times.

If anyone takes the piss, I'll give them a good licking!!!

yeah i had the whole collection of them, and some very early magnets as well. if you can get past the spiffing japes and public school language they're very entertaining, plenty of scraps and cunning plans to enjoy

[Ambient Sheep]

I love the Billy Bunter books by 'Frank Richards.' I still get an odd thrill if I see one for sale in a charity shop.

I *bet* you do.

If anyone takes the piss, I'll give them a good licking!!!

Promises, promises!

[Harfyyn Teuport]

I read all them old Enid Blyton classics when I was wee and noticed with astonishment the magic faraway tree being referenced in V for Vendetta by Alan Moore. 'The Land of Do-As-You-Please' etc.

Roald Dahl's work always kicked the shit out of Blyton though, I got a bit sick of all of her books featuring the impossibly well behaved children she wished she had; "Hmmm, we've left our custard quite long now, good thing I love that extra layer of skin!" And all of the racism was striking to me even as a seven year old.

The best very little kids' books are the Frog series by Max Velthuijs. Really stunningly profound whilst still being very simple. Frog in Love and Frog and the Birdsong are particularly nice. Anyone else read those?

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Expery is great as well. Very funny and ridiculous at times while still being quite meaningful.

[Phillippe Lambert]

Back in the day's of my childhood, them Willard Price books were all the rage. So many adverntures, sea, jungle, desert, mountain, every setting under the sun. Except space. Or did they do space? Probably not.  Still, a cracking yarn all round. Full of suspense. Or maybe it's just the nostalgia talking...

[hotvans]

the silver crown - read at school and recently bought second hand again - i thought loads more had hapened in it but realised my imagination did the rest...

[Purple Tentacle]

Enid Blyton also confusingly wrote a series of books where a gang of five children (or it might have been four with an interchangable pet) solved mysteries 'n' shit, but the gimmick was that one of them was fat, and called "Fredrick Alergoon Trotterville", (F.A.T. geddit?) and they all hated him because he was unpleasent and greedy and smelly and rude like all fat people.

I remember this worrying me slightly even as a nipper, the vitriol and obvious pleasure the racist cow took in pouring misfortune and injury on the fat kid, with the aryan pin-up companions telling him he deserved it because he was fat.


I THINK they were called the Five Find-Outers, but it may have been four.

[Gazeuse]

I love the Billy Bunter books by 'Frank Richards.' I still get an odd thrill if I see one for sale in a charity shop.

I *bet* you do.

If anyone takes the piss, I'll give them a good licking!!!

Promises, promises!

I will not accept such impertinance...Take 500 lines!!!

Alan Garner's books are fantastic too.

[butnut]

I THINK they were called the Five Find-Outers, but it may have been four.

Sounds like they should have been searching for kids in touch with their feminine side, and revealing their secret homosexual desires.

[Ambient Sheep]

Back in the day's of my childhood, them Willard Price books were all the rage. So many adverntures, sea, jungle, desert, mountain, every setting under the sun. Except space. Or did they do space? Probably not.

Heh, I was going to mention them, but I couldn't remember the author and couldn't be arsed to Google.  And no, he didn't do space.  I must have read "Elephant Adventure" several times as a kid.  By an odd coincidence, I saw one for the first time in about 20 years just this Sunday at our local market - "Gorilla Adventure".  It looked crap.  :-(

[Ambient Sheep]

If anyone takes the piss, I'll give them a good licking!!!

Promises, promises!

I will not accept such impertinance...Take 500 lines!!!

Awww, is that all?  You're no FUN any more!

(hefty dose of ;-) required here, I think)

[smoker]

Enid Blyton also confusingly wrote a series of books where a gang of five children (or it might have been four with an interchangable pet) solved mysteries 'n' shit, but the gimmick was that one of them was fat, and called "Fredrick Alergoon Trotterville", (F.A.T. geddit?) and they all hated him because he was unpleasent and greedy and smelly and rude like all fat people.

wrong. he was actually their leader and was loved  by all because, as well as being fat, he was also rich, and bought all the ginger beer and crumpets for them, plus being incredibly smart and witty helped.

[Purple Tentacle]

Enid Blyton also confusingly wrote a series of books where a gang of five children (or it might have been four with an interchangable pet) solved mysteries 'n' shit, but the gimmick was that one of them was fat, and called "Fredrick Alergoon Trotterville", (F.A.T. geddit?) and they all hated him because he was unpleasent and greedy and smelly and rude like all fat people.

wrong. he was actually their leader and was loved  by all because, as well as being fat, he was also rich, and bought all the ginger beer and crumpets for them, plus being incredibly smart and witty helped.

Right, I'm going to have to dig out these books (what WERE they called), because I distinctly remember the fat one falling from a haystack, and later being thrown down some stairs and covered in bruises, and the rest of the gang laughing at his stupid fat injured body.


And then tying him up and forcing him to eat beans until his stomach exploded, before being found by Brad Pitt.

[JJJJH]

Puddle Lane was great, those books are one of my most vivid memories from being a wee lad (can't remember the TV series much though, despite being told I loved it). And didn't they do the regular text and also the bigger, simpler text that catered for the younger/retarded kids? That was a top idea.

The Gruffle scared the bejesus out of me. And for some reason his friendly counterpart the Griffle always made me think of a dirty, hippy, scruffy gypsy sneaking about in someone's garden (that's probably what he was). And anyone remember the series that focused on the wooden girl and the iron boy? Called something like Sandaln and Irun, and they were always on the run from those scary dragons in the fields. Oooooooh.

[Rats]

Has anyone read a book, it was a ghost story about this boy who was an apprentice lock-smith and all these keys were hanging on a wall and he pinched one one night and there was a pub he went to and an old man had a walking stick with a lion on the top of it? and something about a chime child, because he was born at midnight and at the start he's in his room with his brother and they'd both been given a ship in a bottle but his had bust. And some bloke says "have you ever seen anything red out the corner of your eye".
What was it called?

[Ambient Sheep]

A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeleine L'Engle, starring Mrs Who, Mrs Whatsit and Mrs Which.

(That's not an answer to Rats' question, that's just a book I liked as a kid.)

[Munday's Chylde]

Anybody read anything by William Mayne? Because I just heard on the news he's been sent to prison for child abuse.

[thomasina]

Enid Blyton also confusingly wrote a series of books where a gang of five children (or it might have been four with an interchangable pet) solved mysteries 'n' shit, but the gimmick was that one of them was fat, and called "Fredrick Alergoon Trotterville", (F.A.T. geddit?) and they all hated him because he was unpleasent and greedy and smelly and rude like all fat people.

wrong. he was actually their leader and was loved  by all because, as well as being fat, he was also rich, and bought all the ginger beer and crumpets for them, plus being incredibly smart and witty helped.

They were the Finders Out.  As well as being nasty to the fat kid, they had a hanger-on called 'Ern' who wrote poetry and they used to take the piss out of his accent because he was common.  The only kid's name i can remember is Bets, who was the youngest.  I think the pet was a dog.  The stories were all 'The Mystery of..' something or other, I think.

I used to addictively read the Jennings books, which completely kills the idea that children have to recognise their own experiences to enjoy stories.  

Also, the 'William' series by Richmal Crompton - its years since i read them but I think they would still be funny now.

[Kawaii Five-O]

They were the Finders Out.  As well as being nasty to the fat kid, they had a hanger-on called 'Ern' who wrote poetry and they used to take the piss out of his accent because he was common.  The only kid's name i can remember is Bets, who was the youngest.  I think the pet was a dog.  The stories were all 'The Mystery of..' something or other, I think.

Yeah, The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage, The Mystery of the Secret Room etc. They were the Five Find-Outers And Dog (the dog was a scottie whose name escapes me, and belonged to the fat kid). I do remember the names of the other kids though, you had Larry and Daisy who were brother and sister, and Pip, Bets' brother. Peterswood (I think that's what the village was called) seemed to have an awful lot of shady characters, there was some big crime for them to solve every school holiday. You'd think somewhere along the line there'd have been some more policemen appointed to help PC Goon, he clearly couldn't cope on his own.

[butnut]

My favourite children's book was WOOF:



I'm not sure why the story of a boy turning into a dog touched me so much, but it did. I can still remember my mum reading it to me on a summer's evening. <wipes tear from eye> Also liked Swallows and Amazons, which I then reread in a school library with my mates when we were 14, and it was the funniest thing ever (titty, swallow etc)

p.s. Never do a google search for WOOF (NWS)

[Harfyyn Teuport]

Has anyone read a book, it was a ghost story about this boy who was an apprentice lock-smith and all these keys were hanging on a wall and he pinched one one night and there was a pub he went to and an old man had a walking stick with a lion on the top of it? and something about a chime child, because he was born at midnight and at the start he's in his room with his brother and they'd both been given a ship in a bottle but his had bust. And some bloke says "have you ever seen anything red out the corner of your eye".
What was it called?

War And Peace.