The Secret Mountain

The third book in the Secret series, this one has been censored by Blyton's publishers, and it's no longer in print. In fact, they pretend that the book doesn't exist, and that the series has 4 instead of 5 books. In this book, the Arnold children, Jack and prince Paul go to Africa to try to rescue Captain Arnold and his wife, who have disappeared on an airplane trip (it's clear that their resolution after The Secret Island of not going away on more adventures has been forgotten). The book contains the usual not politically correct depiction of native tribes, which is the reason it's been censored. Nothing particularly egregious, though, beyond what you can find in many other books of past eras, when Africa seemed very remote, dangerous show more and exotic. Also a nice, brave character in the black African boy Mafumu, who befriends the children.

These exotic foreign adventures by Enid Blyton are exciting, as all her stories, but it's more difficult to suspend disbelief for them, as they are less grounded and more far-fetched than the stories set in Britain. We even have here that thing about taking advantage of their knowledge of an eclipse to scare hostile natives, which is a trope too often repeated in African adventure books, although probably new to Blyton's young readers. At least this one is not as far-fetched as The Mountain of Adventure, which was even more incredible for being set in Wales.

This Secret series is quite entertaining and full of dangerous situations, though, reminding me of the Adventure series. show less

good one...

Novels/novelettes