After we finished Castle he suggested going back to the Famous Five, but changed his mind. He wanted to know if any of the other books on my shelves were adventurous. I suggested Valley, he wanted something different. He asked about the girls’ boarding school books and I said he probably wasn’t old enough to enjoy them yet. I suggested The Treasure Hunters, Galliano’s Circus etc but no, in the end he went for Valley after all. I love how he goes straight to the Blyton shelves when he is looking for a story now!

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An adventure or not an adventure?

It seems that the children always declare that there won’t be an adventure – either because some of them (looking at Lucy-Ann here of course) doesn’t want one, or because they don’t think they will be lucky enough to have yet another one.

They agree that they won’t have an adventure this time, as they’ll just be messing about at Bill’s house in the middle of nowhere. I very much suspect, though, if they hadn’t been swept off to an abandoned Austrian valley they would have found some sort of adventure at Bill’s. But anyway, this is supposed to be about Brodie’s thoughts, and he said of course they will have an adventure, they always have an adventure. Quite possibly he was assuming they’d have an adventure at Bill’s, not knowing what was in store for them!

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It is an adventure, but there’s no food!

He was quick to say that he didn’t think that Bill was one of the men who had got into the plane, looking at the picture probably helped. However he thought that the men were stealing Bill’s plane, which was entirely possible!

When I revealed that the seats were red, not green, he groaned. “Oh no, the WRONG plane!” in a very Wallace and the wrong trousers sort of way.

He was extremely concerned about the lack of food in the valley and kept bringing it up every time the children ate something or talked about food. He is a child who loves his food and has three meals and (and least) two snacks a day, so the thought of being stuck in a valley with no food source was naturally horrendous to him.

He noticed a slight discrepancy, actually, when it came to the food. Dinah says that as they are hungry they could eat the sandwiches, but leave the cake, chocolate and biscuits for the next day. However she takes out the sandwiches and the cake which they then eat.

But they said they’d only eat the sandwiches! he said, obviously unhappy with their lack of rationing!

He was so focussed on their food he also noticed that they ate cake and biscuits for breakfast the next morning, though perhaps there was enough cake to have seconds.

I noticed that Dinah says there’s only cake and biscuits, but they eat those and the rest of the chocolate too.

He was very glad when they were able to liberate some tins from the men’s shack, though he was horrified by them pushing the empties down rabbit holes. I agree! It’s one thing to hide them somewhere with the intention of removing them later, but shoving them down rabbit holes – and leaving them there – is horrible!

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It is an adventure, now with food and treasure

He guessed that the men might be looking for treasure and gasped excitedly when it was confirmed. The treasure! There IS treasure!

He was completely convinced that the girls were going to find it when they went down the secret passage at the back of the fern cave. What purpose could a secret passage have other than to lead to treasure? He did realise that the sound was the waterfall, but only right before it was revealed and the girls knew what it was.

He also remarked that the boys are going to wonder where the girls are!

He groaned when Lucy-Ann said that the adventure was about to come to an end, but was relieved when I showed him how many pages were left. He couldn’t guess what would happen to keep the story going as they were on their way to find the passage out.

I think he was expecting a more modern, wider road than a farm track so he was disappointed by the overgrown path they follow I prompted him a little, asking him what it could mean that it was really overgrown and he did say that no cars had come along it. The collapsed pass he attributed to an earthquake at first.

His disappointment at them not escaping was brief as of course they move straight on to looking for the treasure, where he kept asking me What’s the next clue?? as if he was about to look for the next signpost.

He dismissed the cave entrance as just a rabbit hole, the pessimist!

The stalackmites and stalack… other ones he remembered about, thanks to Billycock Hill, and even remembered which ones where which once we sorted out the pronunciation.

He instantly declared that the ‘people’ were statues, I think the golden statues of Mystery to Solve clued him in but he despaired at the children being scared and taking what felt like ages to work it out. They’re just STATUES!! He was equally despairing when the men also take time to work out that THEY’RE STATUES!!

He quickly memorized the list of the caves – statues, paintings, books, chests of gold, and repeated these from time to time if the children omitted mentioning any of them.

The ‘talking’ hen surprised him (both in that there was a hen underground and that it appeared to be talking, which he took as true at first!).

He must have been paying attention earlier as when the old couple mentioned Julius Muller he gasped in recognition.

The idea of the children sleeping on the ledge concerned him, as he was sure they would roll off in the night. He pointed out that he would definitely fall off as he has managed to fall out of bed on almost every holiday we’ve had (not always on the first night either, sometimes several nights in!) though he has probably only done it at home once.

A good point he raised was how were the men going to get the statues to the plane. We see them in an illustration carrying one of the smaller ones between them, but they had lots of heavy treasures and I assume they must have lowered things down the cliff with ropes.

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It is an adventure with lots of drama before the end

Once the men arrive at the caves things do get a lot more dramatic.

He was delighted with the new – gasp – secret passage which leads to the fern cave, as well as the fact that Jack always wears a rope round his waist.

The scene with Pepi and the suitcases has him laughing like anything, and he did figure that the something that hit him was a suitcase.

When Jack has his sudden brainwave about locking the men into the caves Jack says to himself Why didn’t I think of it before? and Brodie replied Yes, why DIDN’T he think of that before??

He was so involved in all the valley goings on he objected when the next chapter took us to see what Philip was up to. I don’t want to see what Philip’s doing!

It took him a moment once we started on Philip’s adventure, but he suddenly said we’ve gone back in time, which is right as we start with Philip having just left the treasure caves, earlier on.

Scotland? That’s where we are! he cried when Philip’s location was revealed. He’s always excited if Scotland gets mentioned anywhere.

As with every other book he was a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see the treasures all removed from the caves and the valley reopened.

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It is an adventure, for boys and girls

He was indignant at the boys’ attitude (hurrah!).

“It might be best if Philip and I did the stalking tomorrow,” said Jack. “I don’t think I want you girls mixed up in it.”

The boys always say that! he said, telling me it wasn’t very fair. We did talk about how it was sensible for someone to stay behind in case the others got captured and needed rescued.

I loved his summary – The girls could be useful, like Anne can be useful, and George, she’s a girl though she pretends she’s a boy. He added that the girls had had their own adventure so it ‘s the boys’ turn now.

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All the questions and explanations

Despite Blyton’s supposedly simple language there are always lots of questions when we read. A lot of the time if I tell him to think about it he can make a fairly good guess, other times I need to do big explanations. So here is what stumped him in this book.

What’s an aerodrome?

What’s a gully – like a sea gull?

We discussed sardines, biscuits and milk as it could have been sardines followed by biscuits and milk, but I suggested as they were tinned biscuits they may have been more like oat cake/savoury biscuits with the sardines on top.

We bought a tin of sardines a the shops (it was only 52p) but we haven’t tried them yet!

Why do they always say that? The Adventure Island, the Adventure Castle it makes no sense… He was referring to when Philip said it was their fourth night in the valley – The Valley of Adventure. I actually like it when books (or films) manage to mention their titles but clearly Brodie doesn’t agree!

Ruts took a long time to explain.

Brodie: What are ruts [in the ground].
Me: Gouges.
Brodie: ?
Me: Gashes?
Brodie: ?
Me: Scars, holes, gullies…
Eventually he got it.

Similarly…

Brodie: What’s feeble?
Me: Weak.
Brodie: What week, like next week?
Me: No, weak, like wobbly and not strong.

What’s a brooch?

He also asked if they had slept in the cave before, and I had to really think about it! The answer was no, but so much had happened it seemed like they’d been there longer!

I also had to try to explain to him how Jack couldn’t get to the secret passage behind the picture after locking the men in – which led to me drawing this (clearly excellent) map… though I think I may have mixed up the cave of stars and the cave of stalactites though.

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The illustrations

There was no criticism of the illustrations this time round, perhaps he’s getting used to Tresilian’s style.

The picture of Lizzie prompted a gasp – it’s at the beginning of the chapter before we meet Lizzie – and a cry of A REPTILE! 

Similarly the waterfall got a gasp and a cry of – A WATERFALL!

More gasping for the picture of the boys coming back to the cave with the sack of tins, after a closer look that is, where he spotted – THE MEN!

I couldn’t stop laughing when he looked at the picture of Otto and Jack, where Otto has a notebook to write the directions is. Brodie’s question was Is that a phone he has?

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The reading experience

First up – I did not attempt South American accents for Juan and Pepi. (Incidentally, it felt weird saying Hwan/Whan out loud and not Joo-an as it was in my head as a child) so they have slightly incongruous general bad-guy voices.

Otto got an awkward Austrian/German-ish treeeshure accent which was fine when he had just a few broken words of English, not so easy when he suddenly has whole paragraphs.

The old man got a similar accent to Otto. I actually never realised before how annoying it is that they are called the old man and the old woman – we never learn his name and Elsa is only called Elsa occasionally.

Happily my rrr noises were recognisable as a plane, or at least as the noise I make when I try to imitate a plane…

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A few last points

Having read many Blyton books now Brodie is learning the common traits. For example as soon as the children as what that distant noise is he will say it’s a spring. And it usually is!

Having forgotten about it somewhat in castle he returned to being annoyed by the nicknames Tufty and Freckles. To which the following conversation ensued:

Me: It’s like me calling you sweet pea.
Brodie: I’m not a sweet pea. I’m not for eating.
Me: A sweet pea is a flower.
Brodie: I’m not a flower! You can call me Tufty now. No, Freckles.

He does have wild hair that sticks up at the front a bit, and even more at the back as he  has THREE crowns, but not really any freckles. In the end he settled on me being allowed to call him Tufty Freckles. 

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