The Valley Of Adventure - Enid Blyton > Reviews > A fun flight in a plane leads to adventure

Author's product rating:   

Would you listen to it again?	Absolutely
Story	Outstanding
Characters	Outstanding
Listenability	Pretty compelling but not addictive

Advantages:	Adventure, excitement and intrigue
Disadvantages:	Can seem a little outdated by today's standards

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I am a huge fan of Enid Blyton books, but out of them all there's none I like better than the "Adventure" series of books featuring 4 children and a parrot.

Unlike the Secret Seven and Famous Five series, I've always thought of the Adventure series as being more "grown up." For a start, it doesn't feature jolly adventures in caravans, and there's no meeting up with loveable gipsies who help the children out in their time of need.

Instead the adventures are darker, and more dangerous, with the children often finding themselves in life-threatening positions and facing seemingly inescapable dilemmas.

THE PLOT:
In the Valley of Adventure the four children - Jack, Lucy-Ann, Philip and Dinah, and Kiki the parrot stumble upon an adventure when they try to go for a night flight with a friend of their mother's. Unfortunately for them they end up on the wrong plane, one flown by smugglers!

After a frightening journey they find themselves in a remote and lonely valley, trying to hide their presence from the smugglers and work out a way home.

Whilst there, they find secret tunnels, hidden treasure, make some unexpected friends and uncover a sinister plot.

MAIN CHARACTERS:
Lucy-Ann is the youngest of the four children and therefore portrayed as the baby of the group. She’s the one who always hopes they won’t have adventures, and the one who always gets frightened when the adventures occur. She’s also usually the voice of reason and caution, but this would seem to be more from fear than from common sense – she doesn’t want adventures because she finds them scary, not because she doesn’t think it’s very sensible. A very loveable character, adored by everyone she knows, especially her Aunt who views her as a second daughter.

Dinah is the second youngest of the group, and along with her older brother is definitely one of the troublemakers of the group. If ever a fight or argument springs up, you can be sure that Dinah will be involved, and she’ll probably be the one who started it too. A very hot-headed character who hasn’t yet learnt to control her temper, she endures constant teasing from her brother Philip who knows her fear of any insect, spider, mouse or rat and loves to wind her up by pretending he’s got various creepy crawlies hiding in his pocket.

Philip is the younger of the two boys, and brother to Dinah. He adores all animals, and is adored by them in turn. Able to tame any animal merely by speaking to them softly, Philip is always found with various animals about his person. Philip is the joker of the group, constantly teasing his younger sister and always getting into trouble. He’s also the cheeky one among them, and will often give the bad guys a lot of grief, which usually results in a cuff around the ear or him being locked in various locales.

Jack is the eldest boy, and also the eldest of the four children. Being the eldest he is respected and admired by the other children. He is very mature and sensible and is usually the group member who deals with adults, who always think of him as a nice, sensible lad. Jack adores birds and is rarely seen without his parrot Kiki. Very protective of his little sister, Lucy-Ann and his cousin Dinah, he is always the one who takes charge during adventures and it is usually down to his quick thinking that they get out in one piece.

Kiki the parrot is Jack’s pet and has been with him since she was a baby. Although she’s not human I thought she definitely deserved a mention as one of the main characters. A very clever parrot, she picks up new phrases and sounds with ease, often to the annoyance of the children and, more especially, their Aunt Ally. It is this extraordinary ability which makes Kiki such a useful member of the group, her unusual noises and ability to mimic voices have often gotten the children out of scrapes by confusing the bad guys, giving the children a chance to slip away unnoticed. Loved by all the children, the group wouldn’t be the same without good old Kiki.

Aunt Ally is actually mother to Philip and Dinah, and aunt to Jack and Lucy-Ann. We never get to find out much about her except that her husband has died, and that she took Jack and Lucy-Ann under her wing after the death of their parents. Aunt Ally is portrayed as the kind of mother everyone wishes they had – kind, loving, generous, she never tells the children off and is firm but fair.

Bill is Aunt Ally’s friend (although later on in the series they get married.) We never get to find out much about Bill. He is meant to be working for a secret police force, and as such is a very shady and mysterious character. Always appearing in the late of night and always sneaking around, he has an air of intrigue about him. You get the impression that he’s seen and done a lot in his life. Bill gets on well with all the children, especially Lucy-Ann, whom he adores.

OTHER CHARACTERS:
This book, like all the books in the adventure series, is packed to the brim with villains, who are always portrayed as being dark and swarthy (I never did figure out what that word means!) When you stop to think about it, they’re very stereotypical villains, always scarred and mean looking with deep, evil sounding voices, and usually quite slow witted to boot. However, the children’s reaction to them always makes them seem so much more than just flat, 2D characters with no personality. Through the children’s eyes they become a real threat, to the extent that your heart races when it seems they may catch up with the children. When they DO catch up with the children, although there is never any real violence, apart from the occasional cuff round the ear for Philip, there’s always an underlying tone of violence expressed by the language used to describe the bad guys and their actions, and although you know that the children will eventually escape unharmed, as they always do, you’ll still get a little thrill running down your spine.

OVERALL OPINION:
Overall, I would say that this book, and the rest of the books in the Adventure series are well worth a read. They’ve stood up to the test of time surprisingly well, although the characters seem a little unbelievable by today’s standards. You find me a group of polite, well-mannered children who want nothing more than to go for a ramble and then sit down to a nice big plate of ham and salad! The language they use is also very outdated; my other half began reading this but had to stop due to laughter at Jack and Philip having a “gay old time” at the beach. But outdated language aside, this book is packed full of adventure, intrigue and mystery, with likeable goodies that you want to root for and wonderfully nasty baddies that you want to see fail. Well worth a read, whether you’re 9 or 90.