Stephen Hayes reviewed Five Go to Demon's Rocks by Enid Blyton (Famous Five #19)
None
2 stars
This book has all the usual Enid Blyton trade marks -- a superfluity of exclamation marks, stilted and unconvincing dialogue, and an adventure that doesn't begin until two-thirds of the way through the book. It also, however, has a weak and unconvincing plot.
[a:Arthur Ransome|72120|Arthur Ransome|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1237340866p2/72120.jpg] wrote some children's stories where the "adventure" was simply going and camping out on their own, so the adventure in this case, the children's encounter with some criminals, need not necessarily be the main part of the story, but even the camping part Arthur Ransome wrote so much better. He even, sometimes, included encounters with criminals, for example in [b:The Big Six|18108693|The Battle of $9.99 How Apple, Amazon, and the Big Six Publishers Changed the E-Book Business Overnight|Andrew Richard Albanese|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1371852069l/18108693.SY75.jpg|25431202].
For all her faults, Enid Blyton has written some adventure stories that kids enjoy reading, but I doubt that this is one …
This book has all the usual Enid Blyton trade marks -- a superfluity of exclamation marks, stilted and unconvincing dialogue, and an adventure that doesn't begin until two-thirds of the way through the book. It also, however, has a weak and unconvincing plot.
[a:Arthur Ransome|72120|Arthur Ransome|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1237340866p2/72120.jpg] wrote some children's stories where the "adventure" was simply going and camping out on their own, so the adventure in this case, the children's encounter with some criminals, need not necessarily be the main part of the story, but even the camping part Arthur Ransome wrote so much better. He even, sometimes, included encounters with criminals, for example in [b:The Big Six|18108693|The Battle of $9.99 How Apple, Amazon, and the Big Six Publishers Changed the E-Book Business Overnight|Andrew Richard Albanese|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1371852069l/18108693.SY75.jpg|25431202].
For all her faults, Enid Blyton has written some adventure stories that kids enjoy reading, but I doubt that this is one of them.
