I finished the Secret Island yesterday, so I continued on and finished the next three books in the series: The Secret of Spiggy Holes, The Secret Mountain, and The Secret of Killimooin.

Prince Paul, the fifth member of the party, is introduced in The Secret of Spiggy Holes, and thanks to him, the kids are able to go to Africa to rescue their parents and visit the country of Baronia.

Baronia is an interesting country because I can’t figure out where it is. It has winters so not tropical, but apparently in their summer it gets hotter than Africa?? And there are mountain ranges??

It’s pretty cool that Baronia has so much nature but is also technologically advanced. Their aeroplanes are more advanced than England’s and apparently their technicians are amazing.

I think the stories for The Secret Mountain and the Secret of Killimooin are a bit less plausible (they happen to land in a part of Africa where Paul’s men can speak some of the local language?) but they’re fun nonetheless. I really need to finish the series but the problem is I don’t like the new covers! My copies look like this:

The volume of the first three books was made for Bookmart in, I think, 1990 and maddeningly, I can’t find the illustrator name. The Secret of Killimooin was printed in 2002 in Singapore. I don’t mind collecting the 2002 editions, to be honest, although I’d love to get the ones with the original illustrations! Perhaps I have to search the second-hand bookshops in Bras Basah after the circuit breaker is over for slightly newer copies of the first three books and the last book in the series. Otherwise, I may just have to get some from Amazon (I’ve found one seller but with no pictures provided I’m not sure if it’s the edition that I want!)

I had to do some work today so I ended up fairly restless/anxious (like what I mentioned about in the 4th Mental Health Monday post) and to make myself rest, I decided to read another favourite: The Family at Red Roofs

As much as I love this, I realised that it’s actually quite a bleak story. I loved how Molly, Peter, Michael, and Shirley pulled together after their dad went missing, but this is essentially a tale about how a family was driven to the brink of poverty and the two oldest children had to drop out of school temporarily to make ends meet. I saw an article about Blyton being a snob while searching for the Enid Blyton newsletter that I saw at the back of The Castle of Killimooin, but to be honest the richest person in this book is a snob and seen as someone to be pitied because of her tumultuous family life. In contrast, it’s the working-class characters who are seen to have better characters and are able to handle what life throws at them.

Not going to lie, I still tear up at the end when everyone is reunited.

Cranachan at last

I also managed to make cranachan at last! For some reason, I could not find it in Scotland when I visited so I’m happy to finally be able to eat it. It’s pretty easy and it made for a nice snack while reading.