The Mystery Series: The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat: Book 2

When I was a young boy, Enid Blyton was my gateway drug to reading. I particularly adored the Famous Five and the Five Find Outers and now, years later, I am reading the Five Find Outers series to my seven year old.It's easy to criticise these books - the young working class me wasn't particularly conscious of the privileged world these characters inhabit - the cooks, the chauffeurs, the boarding schools, the Lady living next door etc. Reading the stories in a modern context makes it easy to dismiss them as anachronistic nonsense that should be consigned to history.However, we've read pretty much all the modern stuff over the last few years - every Walliams, every Baddiel etc and none of those titles has inspired my son as much as the Five Find Outers.He turned up from school the other day having proudly written The Six Find Outers and the Mystery of the Missing Cane, a gripping tale of a group of children solving the perplexing problem of the neighbour's vanished cane.We also constantly discuss the mystery the children are solving in the books. As an English teacher, I'm keen to encourage him to learn to read between the lines and understand how to infer meaning and he carefully unpicks every sentence to see if he can unearth any clues.This story is a humdinger: just who has stolen Lady Candling's cat? It could be young gardener Luke or his unlikeable boss Mr Tupping. Perhaps it's Miss Harmer, the cats' carer, or does Miss Trimble tremble too much to be innocent? Or, heaven forbid, has Lady Candling done away with the cat herself in an insurance swindle? (this was my son's initial thought because - SPOILER ALERT - that's exactly what happens in the first book of the series, The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage.). The bumbling Mr Goon isn't going to crack the case, so someone needs to!Anyway, biased as I am due to years of Blyton adoration as a child, I think the Five Find Outers stories are still great, innocent fun for children and help them develop a love of reading. And do you know what? There's not a single gadget or computer in sight.

シリーズものの第２巻。小さな町の子供探偵団のような物語。僕も、子供のころこういうことをしてみたかったけれど、僕の身近では事件が起こらなかった。ストーリーがとんでもない方向へ行ってしまうことがないので、安心して読める。

I grew up reading these books and absolutely loved them - and guess what...? I'm not racist or elitist. Yes these books are very dated, we live in a different world now - but my 6 and 9 year old sons loved these books too, we worked our way through the series two chapters a night. I did stop to explain now and then, that things are very different now, and some of the things in the books wouldn't be OK now, and pointing out that these were very privileged children (most families didn't have cooks, gardeners and boarding schools), but it's the pure joy of the adventures that children loved then, and still love now that have kept Enid Blyton books alive. We've finished the series now and have moved on to the Famous Five books - equally well received!

This is a great Junior detective story: the puzzle is not only who stole the cat, but how could they have done it.There is a satisfying streak of logic in how the Find-Outers go about this mystery that appealed to my six-year-old daughter, and some fun distractions along the way.Higly recommended.

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