Enid Blyton: The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat (children's book)

Enid Blyton: British children's writer, 11.8.1897 – 28.11.1968

Mystery of the disappearing cat: children's book, "Mystery" series, published in 1944

Read this book to my children as a bedtime story. Don't have much good things to say about it. The children were excited somewhere around middle of the book, but the mood  collapsed towards the end like the tail of the cow. The solution of the riddle is silly and irrational, the story crawls along slowly and without expression and the style must have been old-fashioned the day the book was published. "Stupid book", said my lastborn when we reached the last page.

This was  the first book we read from Blyton's "Mystery" series. We have been reading two of author's books earlier: one from  the "Secret Seven" series and one from the "Famous Five"-series. Every time the children's reactions  have been pretty much the same: little excited at some point, but disappointed in the end. Come to think of it, my own reactions as a child were pretty much the same. I read all books from Blyton's "Mystery", "Famous Five" series and most from the "Adventure"-series. Later I have been wondering why I bothered. Only the "Adventure"-series has some quality, I think.

But there were not too many books translated to my native language when I was a kid. So I read pretty much all youth detective series I could get: "Famous Five", "Mystery",  "Adventure",  "Three Investigators", "Nancy Drew", "The Dana Girls" and "Tvillingdetektiverna" ("Twin detectives")-series. These are first ones that come to my mind. Not too many of them are really worth reading: "Three Investigators" and "Tvillingdetektiverna" (written by two Swedish authors under pseudonym Sivar Ahlrud) are my favorites. The fame of Enid Blyton's books is senseless and why new editions still keep coming, I just don't know.

I asked my children to rate "The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat": youngest one gave it a 5 in the scale of 4 to 10 and elder gave it a 7,5. I also asked if they would like me to buy them another book from the "Mystery" series. They said "no". So I don't think we are going to read any more of Enid Blyton. Maybe we try next Harry Potter. Or do you know any good books or book series for youngters that you could suggest?

Blocker's Verdict: 1/5

Word of the day: lastborn = The youngest child of a family