Enid Blyton was born 126 years ago today! In honour of that I thought I would make a list of 126 great moments from her books.

These are in no particular order, in fact I looked up a way to randomize them on my spreadsheet and then did just that (except I moved the ash tree a couple of places so it was at the end!). There are probably hundreds of other great moments but these are just the ones that came to mind to me!

1. Mysterious twang-dongs are heard in Moon Castle
2. George and the Arnold children find a secret passage up the chimney
3. Jo sets Beauty the python on the men in the secret passage
4. Fatty takes up running to avoid Eunice
5. The Mannering-Trents sneak up the secret passage and confuse Jo-Jo
6. The fourth formers play the pinging bubble trick

7. Jack goes to the hotel to tell Mr and Mrs Arnold about their children
8. Whenever Miranda has a go at riding Loony
9. Philip turns the pack of dogs back on Mieir and Erlick
10. George rescues Julian, Dick and Jock after being banned from going adventuring
11. Fatty escapes a locked room with a bit of newspaper under the door
12. George signs her name as Georgina to let the others know that something is up
13. Dinah and Lucy-Ann do their waterfall dance to distract the men
14. Darrell slaps Gwen in the pool
15. The peddlar-man creeping around the circus in the night turns out to be Bill with a false moustache

16. June rescues Amanda from the sea
17. The boys ring the bell at Demon’s Rocks
18. Pip plays a big-footed trick and solves the mystery
19. Uncle Quentin can’t get Berta, er Leslie, er Jane’s name right
20. George’s wreck is thrown up by the storm
21. Every time Irene loses or forgets her health certificate
22. Philip, Dinah and Lucy-Ann pretend to be ill in order to escape from the cave
23. Fatty and Goon disguise themselves as waxworks
24. The boys see the Spook Train coming in and out of its tunnel in the dead of night
25. Miss Grayling’s speech to the new girls
26. Loony meets Loopy
27. Kiki gets under Gus’s bed to torment him
28. Margery rescues Erica from the sick bay when it catches fire

29. Snubby wears the bear-skin rug to pretend to be a wild bear
30. Barney and Mirands escape the whirlpool
31. Miss Grayling gives her welcome speech and references Darrell’s success at the school
32. Snubby makes up the green hand gang to a stranger who turns out to be Uncle Robert
33. Anne takes Mr Curton to task over his bad deeds
34. The heavy rains swell the underground river and make escaping from the robber’s forest difficult
35. Goon stuffs the doll’s clothes down Fatty’s back
36. Fatty disguises himself as an old tramp, almost identical to the real old tramp
37. The second-formers play their magnet trick
38. Irene nearly takes Belinda’s eye out with her hairbrush

39. Amelia Jane runs wild with the scissors and cuts up lots of things in the nursery
40. Philip’s rat goes up Mr Roy’s trouser leg
41. Mr Lorenzo bumps into the fake Mr Lorenzo
42. Jimmy, Lotta and Lucky ride off to find Sammy the missing chimpanzee
43. Gussy is disguised as a girl to avoid detection
44. Julian stands up to Mr Perton (and is kind to Aggie)
45. Jimmy, Lotta and Lucky have to rescue the bears in the night
46. Amelia Jane accidentally covers herself in treacle and feathers
47. Mr Goon get a short shrift as he goes around asking questions about shoe sizes
48. Snubby takes an earlier train and arrives at the house while Roger and Diana are at the station
49. The third formers play the sneezing pellet trick
50. The children’s suitcases fall from the tree and knock out Pepi

51. Darrell takes the chalk trick too far with her OY
52. Fatty pretends to be an old woman visiting himself in bed
53. The Five make up sounds they might have heard to Mr Lenoir
54. Morgan shouts for his seven dogs
55. Anne throws water over Wilfrid in one of her tiger moments
56. Goon attempts various disguises but the Find-Outers aren’t fooled
57. Kiki gets on Aunt Polly’s good side, inadvertently, by saying Poor Polly
58. Jack teaches the others how to build a willow house
59. Julian and Dick dress up as Clopper and get stuck

60. Amelia Jane brings her snow-baby into the warm nursery for a nap
61. Barney’s long-lost father turns up
62. The Saucepan Man brings the wrong presents due to him mishearing the requests
63. Bill and the children use seabirds as a disguise
64. Mam’zelle Dupont asks Amanda how many pebbles she weighs
65. Belinda draws her unflattering sketches of the mam’zelle’s fight
66. Fatty develops a skill in ventriloquism
67. Whenever Fatty dresses as a red-headed boy
68. Jimmy rescues Jemima the monkey from the tigers’ cage
69. June’s swelling trick goes wrong
70. Edgar falls through the roof-hole to the Kirrin island cave

71. Elizabeth learns that changing your mind is not cowardly
72. The second-formers play the invisible chalk trick
73. Janet plays an inkblot trick on Mam’zelle
74. Blind Beowald shows the way to the robbers’ secret entrance
75. Susan and Peter move into their hollow tree house
76. The boys shoo off Mr Luffy by mistake
77. Suzanne pretends not to understand the ‘piggy-hoo-lear’ English language as well as she does
78. Mam’zelle’s fake teeth fall out onto the grass
79. The Find-Outers play woo-hoo-collywobbles
80. The Arnold children secretly send messages to Prince Paul from their window

81. Snubby throws Miss Pepper’s hairbrush back through her window and hits her with it
82. Mr Arnold throws a knife into the sun just before an eclipse
83. Gussy thinking that any money you keep in your pocket is therefore pocket money
84. George and Timmy take Junior his breakfast
85. Bill and his men walk off their pedestals in the knights’ armour
86. Jack’s cow swims behind the boat
87. Amelia Jane makes a plasticine snake and plasticine furniture to trick the toys
88. Philip gets the escaped bears back into their cage
89. Dick is passed the mysterious note in the night

90. George sneaks down the rope ladder and walks the walls of Castaway Hill
91. The Land of Dreams comes to the top of the Faraway Tree
92. Mam’zelle “catches” all the burglars in St Clare’s
93. Daphne saves Mary-Lou
94. Tom and Andy use an annoying gramophone record to trick the men
95. The Five line up Tall Chimney, Tock Hill etc to find the Saucy Jane
96. Tom the blacksmith tells the tale of the Bartles
97. Bobby makes Mam’zelles plate jiggle about
98. Bobby changes the clock so they get out of class early
99. Alicia pretends to be deaf and mishears Mam’zelle
100. Roger, Diana and Snubby meet Naomi Barlow aka Red Riding Hood

101. Miss Peters saves Thunder (and Mavis)
102. Sooty pretends to have bitten Block
103. The acrobatic high-wire rescue of the children from Borken Castle
104. Mrs Penruthlan boxes Julian’s ears
105. Julian throws the box from the wreck out of the upstairs window
106. Amelia Jane lights a fire in her stolen snow house
107. Eizabeth has a sign put on her back declaring she is the Bold, Bad Girl
108. Whenever Loony starts his brush and rug stealing antics
109. Daisy moos in the caves and scares the men
110. The Arnold children are hit by strange pins and needles
111. Jeremiah Boogle tells the tale of the three wreckers
112. Jo swaps places with George to the kidnappers

113. Antoinette rings the fire-bell to disrupt the meeting
114. Anne thinks she has been sitting on a volcano
115. PC Pippin pulls the vicar’s brother’s hair, mistaking it for a wig
116. The Mannering-Trents realise that the plane’s seats are the wrong colour
117. Mary-Lou bravely goes searching at night for clues to prove Darrell is innocent
118. Old Grandad tells the tale of Ring o’ Bells
119. Antoinette mixes up Angela’s anchovy paste and shoe polish
120. Jo steals Dick’s bike having promised not to take Julian’s
121. Diana asks ‘Why is father so mouldy?’
122. The Mannering-Trents hold Horace Tipperlong hostage

123. Julian stands up to the Sticks
124. Kiki “falls” off the castle top
125. Don’t forget Bill Smugs
126. The ash tree falls on Kirrin Cottage