Famous Five: 3: Five Run Away Together: 70th Anniversary Edition: Book 3 (Famous Five 70th Anniversary)

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I always have to laugh when I re-read the great scene with Julius taking the cake away from the pantry :-).

Did I mention that in addition to the castle (emptied of its gold by the children in book 1) the island has an exposed shipwreck and a cave? This is probably also the novel where Julian’s pompous nature (loved by some [me] and hated by most) starts to really develop. They had a fine breakfast of tongue, tinned peaches, bread and butter, golden syrup and ginger-beer. Anne had opened a tin of salmon, two tins of peaches, a tin of milk, cut some bread and butter, and made a big jug of cocoa.

In the 60s, she was accused of racism for books not mentioned here, as well as of sexism and xenophobia (it’s true that foreign people are seen as suspicious in a few stories. Two stars less for this one - due mainly to the appalling class snobbery displayed throughout the Famous Five’s third adventure. There was a recurrent threat of animal violence, with the characters encouraging their dog to attack a smaller one! These days one simply cannot hire anybody off the street to look after children, and if one does so without performing the proper checks, then one could also get oneself in trouble. From this point of view, Julian’s put down, sharp attitude to the Sticks is justified, and their treatment of Edgar (who is about as pleasant as his mother is) makes more sense.

The Five, deciding that they can’t stay in Kirrin Cottage with the Sticks any longer, head out to the island and one of my favourite parts is where they go around the house collecting supplies of food and blankets and things to use and live off of when they’re on Kirrin Island.We started to make jokes about Famous Five “All the do is picnic and talk about how delicious their apples are. Of course all the adults as fine with unsupervised 11 year old George rowing across open sea and through said rocks with her cousins. Some of this through animal impressions relying on the deeply unconvincing rural ignorance of this family of "city folk" and the equally unconvincing echoiness of the castle dungeons.