These two books we read from April 17 to May 8. That’s only 11 days a book, which is not bad considering I can’t read t him every night due to my working pattern.

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Five on Finniston Farm

We began with the question of What’s Dorset? I limited my answer to an area in England, and left off that it will have the same Cornish-esque-ish accent I use for all the south west parts of England.

Although George is not with the boys at the beginning of the story he gasped when they refer to Georgina and said He called her Georgina! She won’t answer! He was dismayed when I said that it was OK because George wasn’t with them.

He groaned. So it’s just the boys? That means there won’t be an adventure! (So at least he’s equally disappointed by members of the Five being missing, not just the boys.)

Julian also says the four of us, which Brodie immediately corrected with FIVE!!! before Dick could say the same thing.

Looking at the illustration of the boys (I always pause reading and move the book closer so he can examine every illustration) he said of Dick’s hat It’s a round hat like the patterned ones those people wear and they hold the shaker things and do this… whereby he waved some imaginary shakers.

Yes, he meant Mexican people with sombreros and maracas, and he did some more imaginary maraca shaking.

He laughed as Julian tried to roll over asleep against the gate.

He thought Old Grandad’s supposed loud voice sounded like the other guy’s voice from the last story. That would be Morgan, then, even though he was supposed to sound Welsh.

We had a disagreement as he didn’t like the poppy heads referred to. People have heads apparently, not flowers. I said lots of other things have heads, like beds and boats. Windows don’t, he pointed out rather smugly. Which is true, aggravatingly.

Of the twins in the illustration he said They’re small and so the same! They’re very the same! Later he pointed out that Dick and one of the twins are wearing watches, like twins – and to be fair the twins are a bit like younger versions of Dick. He got a bit stuck on twins and also told me that he and one of the teachers at school were like twins as they had the same medal on one time…

He said that jackdaws don’t made good pets. They go CHACK CHACK too loudly all the time. He chacked a lot doing this chapter, in fact. Every time Nosey chacked (in anger, or like he was laughing) Brodie provided the sound effect.

For some reason for most of the book he didn’t really like old grandad but he couldn’t find a word for what was wrong with him. He also didn’t like it at the end where Old Grandad swings the sword around as it was a bit much(!). 

He has a dog, though! he said looking at the picture of Grandad and Timmy. I asked him what he thought of the Harries and he said I don’t think they get along. That’s why they never smile.

Tune in next time for tales of bad American accents…

But first he said he’d like to milk a cow but he doesn’t know how. You don’t just… squeeze it, do you? I reminded him (or tried to at least) of the fake cows he’s milked at a couple of farm/play places.

Looking at at the picture of Junior facing off against Timmy he declared That’s not George! He wasn’t wrong, but he seemed quite incensed that someone other than George should be drawn beside Timmy.

He desperately wanted to know what the old tool they found was and, as is so often the case, was disappointed that I couldn’t figure it out from the absolutely zero clues given.

He misheard me read Strong as an ox, which led to this bizarre conversation.

Brodie: Strong as an auk? A great auk??
Me: No, an ox.
Brodie: An AUK?
Me: No! AN OX. You know, like OXEN?
Brodie: A toxin??
Me: OKsen.
Brodie: Boxin? Soxin? What’s oxen?
Me (wearily): Like cows… Here, look at the pictures on Google.

Thank god for smartphones and search engines! It was funny that his mind went to auks as he first heard of them from The Island of Adventure. He’s starting to make the same associations as me, I think.

Once the twins unbent he demanded to know which was which – right before they explain who is who.

One night I realised that we forgot to buy macaroons after talking about them last time. He’s still not convinced he will like them – this post I think proves otherwise. He asked if he could have chocolate macaroons or ones with jam in them. I suggested we try making some and he was even more suspicious. (We did in fact remember to buy macaroons later and – unsurprisingly – he declared that he loved them and ate at least half the pack. And I think we will have a go at making our own in the holidays.)

He was aghast to hear of Finniston CASTLE!? He didn’t who the Normans were and even though I tried to explain they were a group of people a bit like Scottish people are Scots he said Norman, like naughty Norman price? (From Fireman Sam in case anyone doesn’t get the reference.)

He asked how a stone castle burnt to the ground not long before George did, and wondered what Mr Finniston meant by full of prayer, before the girls did. That was a hard one to explain. But he reminded me that I don’t believe in Jesus, not unless he has two hearts and that’s how he came back.

I asked him what he thought was in the dungeons. Skeletons? There must have been dead bodies around. Why were there no skeletons in George’s dungeons? That doesn’t make any sense.

He suggested there would be a mark in the grass where the castle had stood, as things always leave a mark where they’ve been. The darker green grass that they fins was, according to him, still recovering from being flattened by the stones of the castle. Grass dies when it has things on top of it. I don’t think that he can comprehend that the grass has had at least a few hundred years to recover.

He didn’t ask what horse brasses are (obviously didn’t feel like that was important) but I asked him if he knew, and he guessed horse shoes. I showed him pictures from a James Herriot children’s book of a horse done up with brasses on and he asked why would you want to buy weird things like that? 

He was confused by the idea of embers and bricks in people’s beds, in case they got burnt (which I guess is a risk!) and he wanted to know why they didn’t just use plastics if they didn’t have rubber for hot water bottles.

Every time the Five mentioned not letting Junior know (about the castle, the treasure, etc) he sighed and said Junior already knows! I think he forgets sometimes that the characters don’t always know the same things that we do.

He argued with Dick about moles, saying they are not very large and showing me with his hands the size he thought they were.

He couldn’t guess what oyster shells and bones meant specifically, but he did guess that it meant the castle was near. I really notice now how good Blyton was at knowing when to explain things – usually via the younger Anne or Bets type characters – as so often Brodie asks what a kitchen midden etc is and the next paragraph is Anne asking the same question. Obviously lots of things were common at the time the books were written and didn’t need explained, but have to be explained now.

He was concerned that the Five would be lying when they said they wanted to dig because they’d found old bones and shells. I had to explain that they weren’t really lying they were just not giving all the information i.e. they thought that there would he treasure there. I love that he’s picked up on their scrupulous honestly though!

He was astounded by the £250 payment for digging (he has no better a grasp of large amounts of money than of time passing, and doesn’t quite understand that a pound in the 50s isn’t the same as a pound today). He was even more astounded when I worked out that with inflation it would probably have been £7200 today, and with the further £250/7200 the Philpots could probably afford the new tractor they wanted.

In a similar vein he declared it would take a hundred and thirty two hours to dig into the cellars. A hundred and fifty!

It took some prompting to think about it but he did eventually work out that they could find the secret passage and get into the dungeons before the men!

With the dagger and the ring he said It was the woman! meaning Lady Finniston, thinking she dropped them in the passage as she fled – not a silly guess at all. He thought it would be easy for the Five to just squeeze down the rabbit hole, though.

Around this point we found a stain on the pages of the book, like a drop of tea or coffee dripped on one page then mirrored on the other when the book was closed.

He demanded to know what it was (he’s very against damaging books!) and I said someone must have spilled something on it. Like tea! he said. No, like COFFEE! It must have been Gran when she was reading it. Grandad must have made her coffee and she went to get it from the machine and she must have splashed it on the book!

Many of my hardbacks were indeed my mum’s but not this one, she had the Knight paperback, and anyway she wouldn’t have been drinking coffee made by my dad when she was reading the Famous Five as a child. So she’s off the hook!

He was not happy about having to stop reading for the night, just as the enter the passage as it was getting exiting and to the actual adventure.

He instantly knew that the feathers they found came from the jackdaw. I think he and I both thought that the Five were being pretty stupid not to realise that straight away. He also knew that the weird noise was the jackhammer the men are using before the Five worked it out.

He loves knights so he was very excited by the armour and kept wanting to know if there were shields as well.

He couldn’t work out what had spilled from the chest, even looking at the illustration. He suggested Bells? a dog??

He found it really exciting when the children went to tell everyone what they’d found, and didn’t think they should have to wash up first (but then he never thinks he should have to wash his hands before a meal regardless of what he’s been doing first!).

It took me a while to get him to understand how underhand Mr Henning was being when he undervalued the treasure.

He asked me – before we’d even finished the book – if the next one was going to be about them uncovering all the treasure and selling it and was really disappointed when I said no. That’s been a common theme, actually, as Blyton regularly wraps up the story a bit too early for him!

Things he didn’t know about also included sacks of meal, (thinking of actual meals in a sack) meat pie (again) saying they should just have called it a pork pie if that’s what it is, slew, shelling peas, and myxomatosis.

There wasn’t so much to laugh at in this book – he wasn’t that amused by George and Timmy going for Junior in bed for example, but he did find Timmy falling off the Land Rover was pretty funny.

At the end he said he LOVED this story. His favourite characters were his usual (he literally said my usual), Julian, Dick, George, not Anne, Timmy and Snippet and the Jackdaw, Mr Philpot and Mrs Philpot and Grandad, and the person from the shop (Mr Finniston, not Janie or her mum), Mr Henning and Junior, though he agreed that they were awful so maybe more a loved-to-hate them more than actually liked them. He couldn’t choose a favourite part as he said the whole book was so exciting.

As for me? I thought the accents went OK. The Generic American Accent definitely slid into a deep Southern sort of drawl, but it wasn’t quite as hard to switch between Cornish and American now that there’s no Welsh in the mix. However it was hard to do Dick doing an American accent as mine is already so bad.

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Five Go to Demon’s Rocks

He was disappointingly not that excited about the lighthouse! He thought it was a weird place to go.

In fact he wasn’t as keen as usual to read the next Famous Five, and said he was bored of them. I pretty much ignored that and said we’d give the next one a go. Unfortunately I forgot just how long it takes them to actually GET to the lighthouse! It was over six chapters. I kept (inaccurately) saying They’ll be off to the lighthouse in just one more chapter… but eventually, on our fourth night of reading they actually got to Demon’s Rocks and he became as enthralled as ever.

He was pragmatic about the household problems – The Five will just have to go and stay somewhere else.

He liked to provide the car noises as mine apparently weren’t very good. The cheek! My seagull noises also didn’t impress.

I showed him Beachy Head lighthouse, as although he said I know what a lighthouse is! I wanted him to understand about the rocks and it being out to sea. He asked Is that the real lighthouse from the book? and I told him that it’s my theory that she based it on that one. He declared then that it was that very lighthouse, end of discussion.

He loved Jeremiah Boogle’s name and kept correcting me every time the text called him just Jeremiah. Jeremiah BOOGLE! It got to the point I was actually adding Boogle in just to keep him happy (when I remembered, anyway).

He kept asking Who’s talking? when Blyton addresses the Five (which she does quite a few times) as clearly he can’t tell the difference between me making comments and Blyton’s voice!

When Anne suggests the things they should buy when they go out the next day he interrupted with And post cards!

He was suspicious at Jeremiah (Boogle) saying he had story – namely that we wouldn’t hear it. It always says that, and then we don’t hear it. But in this case we do get to hear the story.

He guessed it was the policeman shouting up the stairs. Perhaps aided by me using the same voice as I’d used for him earlier. In my best Cornish-ish accent, naturally.

From the picture he thought Mischief had found a ring – obviously he doesn’t think Soper drew coins well! And after a moment the treasure!

Whenever the Five mentioned looking for the other way into the underground passages – or wondered how they were going to get out of the lighthouse he (with increasing despair) said Down the shaft! But he did also accuse the locksmith of coming along and locking them in.

He agreed with Julian that they had been in worse fixes than this – he thought that being trapped underground at Finniston Farm (or – the place where the thing burnt down as he described it) – with NO FOOD AT ALL – was worse.

He asked what kind of hammer hits a bell – like a tool hammer?

Has anyone heard the bell/seen the light? No, I don’t think so. He’s such a pessimist!

His favourite characters were: Dick, George, Timmy, Jeremiah Boogle, the policeman, the doctor(?), Timmy, the boy, Mischief… I had to remind him about Julian!

He liked the book but was disappointed that we didn’t get to see the boys recover the rest of the treasure. Who’s saying goodbye? Why is she saying good bye, it cant be the end, they haven’t found the treasure yet?

He also wasn’t too impressed with the lighthouse as he likes it best when the Five have a proper adventure – camping and surviving outdoors. The lighthouse was just like staying in a house. His favourite part was them ringing the bell and lighting the lamp – which is my favourite part too.

Things we looked up this time: The lighthouse at Alexandria. He asked if it was still there before Dick did.

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