I’m a bit behind on these reviews – we’re actually on Ship at the moment. But better late than never, we read Sea from 17 July to to 5 August.

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Some things never change

People accuse Blyton of being repetitive but I think having key plots, characters and behaviours in books is a good thing! It makes a series feel comfortably familiar and cohesive.

Anyway, there are certain things Brodie always says when we read an Adventure book.

There is almost always a moment of dismay when it’s suggested that there will be no adventure (or that an adventure is over prematurely) – this time the children having a governess would surely put the kibosh on any adventure.

However he is quick to rally, and say that it’s an Adventure Series book so there HAS to be an adventure.

He knows by now that If Bill comes they WILL have an adventure. (While going off with Dr Johns would be boring and non-adventurous). If any of the children ask if it is an adventure they’re falling into he always says Of course an adventure is coming, in an its-so-obvious tone.

Something else predictable in this series is that Kiki will be funny, and he never fails to laugh at her. He finds her particularly funny when she muddles her lines up and this time made me repeat the wipe the door, shut your feet etc a few times. He also asks me (at random) to do Kiki’s muddled phrases and make more of my own… blow the door, shut your nose, close your feet… and likes to do his own versions too.

Also guaranteed is him gasping if anyone mentions Scotland. We live in Scotland!!

We’ve read enough that he now predicts when Lucy-Ann is going to make her food tastes better outdoors speech (though he doesn’t agree that it does!).

And as Blyton predictable manages to work the title of each book into the text somewhere Brodie predictably has to ask why do they always say the something of adventure??

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Teaching moments

We always get derailed when reading as he asks what certain things mean, or I want to explain something.

First up in this book was measles, because thankfully that’s a lot less common these days. I spent a minute or two talking about how common it was, how serious it could be, but he should never get them as he is vaccinated.

His response?

Oh I’m glad! I don’t want to die at young age. You shouldn’t die at a young age, should you?

The questions he asked as we read were:

• What’s peaky
• Can you really smell freckles??
• What’s a smoke screen
• What’s a lagoon

Freckles and lagoons were answered in the text after I’d already answered him.

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Reading aloud

Reading aloud is a bizarrely different experience to all the times I’ve read it in my head. Like I noticed that they say sea pinks an awful lot, most of which felt unnecessary. Disclaimer, I actually checked and it’s only 8 times but it still felt like far too many.

The use of waked and awoken has never bothered me before but I always read woke and woken, same with lit rather than lighted. Otherwise it makes me trip up because it sounds so wrong out loud.

I also changed a few bits regarding the girls, who are assumed to be useless and weak on several occasions. Like in previous books I have sometimes said children instead of just girls, such as them all taking turns (or at least planning to) pilot the boat and rowing. Instead of Bill ordering the boys to lie on top of the girls they just squashed up on the floor of the boat together.

It’s often just easier to do that than to derail the story with another discussion about historical attitudes to women and girls. Brodie gets enough nonsense at school about how boys and girls should cross their legs differently, and that boys can’t skip without absorbing it through stories too.

Sound effects wise we had seagulls (which I can’t do to save my life, even after asking Alexa to play some for inspiration) and puffins (which I struggled with at first but think I sort of got it eventually).

You’d think that my Scottish fisherman voice would be spot on, and maybe it was, but Brodie apparently didn’t understand any of it…

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Predictions

It wouldn’t be a reading to Brodie post without me telling you his adamant predictions about what was coming next. As usual it was about 50/50!

His first concern was that they would struggle for money if Mrs Mannering cancelled her new job in order to take them away.

Then he was convinced that it was Bill hiding at the front gate (to be fair I think I thought that too, especially as Bill then does appear).

However he insisted that the man with Philip in the illustration was NOT Bill. Why? because Bill’s not BALD!(?)

So far he was 0 for 3, but then he declared that the aeroplane was Bill’s enemies. Not just people up to no good, but Bills enemies! A lucky guess, or is he a genius?

The orange peel must have come from the fisherman. Or maybe it fell from an aeroplane!

Less of a prediction but he was extremely worried about the children once they were trapped on the island. He did suggest a signal fire before they did, and was interested in my idea of spelling out SOS on the beach, which lead to me trying to explain the concept of souls…

As soon as the children said they hoped that the tents wouldn’t blow away in the storm he said but they will. He was really very certain about that! There was still a huge gasp when it happened, though. The tents! The tents have blown away! What are they going to DO??

He couldn’t decide if Horace Tripalong Tipperlong was an enemy or not, but decided he mostly was, but went back and forth to the end.

As he loves Kiki so much he was horrified that Kiki was hit and really worried she was hurt or killed.

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Second favourite after talking parrots

He loved the puffins and particularly the idea of having pet puffins. This led to him being devastated that they couldn’t take Huffin and Puffin home with them, to the point of real tears. He had worried about whether they could be brought home earlier in the book, but been distracted by the story until it was confirmed at the end. We had to talk about how puffins wouldn’t be happy or well kept in an ordinary house or garden.

Coincidentally I came across a short video of a puffin with fish lined up in his beak while we read this, so I showed Brodie who was rather impressed. They were not as big as the fish in the illustration, though!

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