Five Have Plenty of Fun

Five Have Plenty of Fun

Brief Summary by Poppy Hutchinson (from www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk): A mysterious arrival at Kirrin Cottage, in the middle of the night, sparks excitement amongst George and her cousins. Berta is a vulnerable, young American girl, (daughter of a rich man) who is fleeing kidnappers and the Kirrin Household have been personally asked to protect and disguise her. In order to make her unrecognisable, Berta is transformed into a handsome looking young boy called Lesley – and the Five are constantly on the look out for potential kidnappers. Will the disguise be successful, or will Berta be recognised and therefore find herself in grave danger?


Random thoughts:

Another non-descriptive title (to go with Go Adventuring show more Again, Get Into Trouble, Fall Into Adventure and Have a Wonderful Time).

Uncle Quentin is at his most ridiculous level of Quentinness. In front of George, he vociferates his outrage because an American colleague has said he would give away scientific secrets if his only daughter was kidnapped and threatened. Quentin is livid at this lack of spine and moral fiber. "Traitor to us all! How can he even think of giving away secrets for the sake of a silly girl?" Nice to see you have your priorities right, Quentin, and good of you to let your daughter know, so that she won't ever let herself be kidnapped. Not that she won't get kidnapped anyway, mind. When Aunt Fanny tries to calm him down, and explain that some people actually care about their daughters, he has some well-deserved words for her: 'Women are always soft and silly. It's a good thing you don't know any secrets – you'd give them away to the milkman!' The children and Fanny laugh at him, and I also found him very funny in this book, but if I were George I would be offended.

And what's the secret that's worth more than George? Yet another cheap, limitless source of energy for mankind. I thought that uncle Quentin had already discovered that back in Kirrin Island Again. Besides, apparently, the scientists are finishing their research and intend to make all their findings public in a month, which makes me wonder why some people are so eager to get the secret, since it's going to be public in a few weeks anyway, and why Quentin would be willing to sacrifice his own daughter to avoid revealing something he intends to make public very soon anyway...

Oh well... so the American scientist arrives, is impressed with the Five, and finally sends his beloved daughter there so that she'll be safe from kidnappers. The police has warned him about that possibility, but asking the police for protection would be ridiculous. Also, as we all know, there's no safer place on Earth than Kirrin Cottage.

The differences between American and British language provide a lot of entertainment. Uncle Quentin is amazed at the American way of using the word "guy", which of course is used everywhere nowadays. I wonder if that has been removed from the "modern" edition. I hope not, because it's fun, like the difficulties Berta has pronouncing some words in the British style.

One of the measures taken to keep Berta safe is to dress her like a boy, making her the fourth girl in boys' clothes in the series (after George, Jo and Henry). And of course, even though she is very girlish, once she get into boys' clothes the little girl looks more like a boy than George, to George's intense annoyance. Really, George, can't you do anything about that curly hair of yours?

George, by the way, displays some immature behavior directed at their American guest. It's entertaining to see, although not as much as in the previous book, where she had Henry to fight back with the same weapons, making it extra entertaining.

In spite of George's attitude, however, and of Berta being girlish and a bit spoiled, she (Berta) turns out not to be bad at all, and she pluckily holds her own well.

Another funny part is the recurring joke of Uncle Quentin's inability to remember Berta's name. Berta's names, in fact, since of course she needs a new name once she is turned into a boy.

So, the entertainment in this pre-adventure part is provided by Uncle Quentin, George, Berta and her little dog. We are denied the pleasure of exploring a new setting, since this all takes place around Kirrin. There's one very brief visit to the island, after several delays while the children wait for Alf... I mean, James the fisher boy to finish repairing the boat. I wondered at that point why they didn't go to the island through the secret passage. Is it forgotten, like the fact that the island belongs to all the children and not just George, or maybe they just prefer to go there by boat? One thing is clear: the high difficulty of getting to the island through the reef is forgotten, since a police boat gets there with no problem.

With Berta disguised as a boy in Kirrin Cottage, her father has a fit because he detects some error in their calculations and Uncle Quentin has to rush away to visit him, with Aunt Fanny in tow, leaving the children alone with Joanna the cook to deal with any kidnappers.

Then the adventure part starts, and it's strongly reminiscent of Five Fall Into Adventure, where George is kidnapped by people who are after scientific secrets, with the children having to deal with it on their own, with Jo's help (nice to see you, Jo!).

I had to wonder about the police here. In the first place, why isn't some protection assigned to Berta, since it was the police who warned she was at risk. After the kidnapping, In Fall Into Adventure, there was a plausible not to notify the police, which explained the children dealing with the problem on their own. But here the police is notified, but prove to be extremely inefficient. The children are the ones who examine the crime scene and discover clues, and even when they tell the police about the clues they do nothing about them, leaving the children to investigate and find George and capture the criminals on their own, after some fortunate coincidences and a weird scene where both the children and the criminals get locked at the same time in different rooms of a house.

The children manage to escape and forget to notify the police until the following day, but it's no problem because the criminals haven't been able to get out of their locked room. Uncle Quentin and Aunt Fanny return at the same time. They hadn't returned when they heard about George being kidnapped because surprisingly Quentin had a collapse when he heard the news. This is the same guy who was saying a few days ago that if George was kidnapped he certainly would not give away any of his scientific secrets to get her back.

Blyton pokes meta fun at the title of the book, with the children discussing what title the book about their adventure should have. George is the one who comes up with "Have Plenty of Fun", even though she spent half the book sulking at Berta and the other half kidnapped. (To be fair, they also had some fun, but let me exaggerate a bit for comical effect).

The worst problem of the book are the uncanny similarities with Five Fall Into Adventure, but once you ignore that the story is enjoyable enough. Not the best in the series, but a decent entry in the series.


Next up: Five on a Secret Trail (Famous Five, #15) show less

Just squeaked in at three stars

Red

New and contemporary cover treatment brings The Famous Five into the 21st Century, and to a whole new generation of readers!

Uhhh... how is this going to help my recollecting the plot/memory of the book?

i-dont-remember-this-book #3

Red

Book 14

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