The Mystery of the Ugly Book Covers

For my birthday (in April) I received, amongst other things, a RM50-book voucher, which I spent on a few Enid Blyton Mystery books. A few years ago I completed my collection of her Adventure books (they're the ones with Kiki the Parrot), but I am still short of a few Famous Fives, and I need at least five more titles to complete the Mystery series.

The Mystery books feature The Five Find Outers and Dog. The leader of the pack is Fatty. Then there's Pip and Bets, Daisy and Larry, and Buster (Fatty's dog). The Find Outers solve mysteries that take place in or near the town of Peterswood, where they live. They're aren't as widely travelled as the kids who go adventuring (that lot always end up in the most exotic locations) or the Famous Five (they like hiking and camping in the English countryside).

To my delight, the Mystery books were recently reissued by Egmont Books. Unfortunately, these new editions come with really ugly covers! Still, as I only have two tattered and torn copies of the old Red Dragon paperbacks, these reissues are most welcome. Anyway, I can always wrap them in brown paper!

You can buy the Mystery books at all good bookshops for RM13.90.

Comments

[kevin]

i read the five find outers avidly as a child and recently attempted to collect the red dragon set with beautiful covers all primary colours etc but ive only got 8 so far, any idea where i mite get more? thanks

[irene]

Reading about Enid Blyton's Five Find-Outers brought back memories. She had the Famous Five, Secret Seven, Five Find-Outers, Mallory Towers, St Clare's... those were the days. I've never read the 'Adventure Books', though. I recently bought the Far-Away Tree collection, which I absolutely loved as a kid.

[Fatty's evil twin]

I always loved the Five Find-Outers and agree that the newer covers don't do the books justice ... I also always thought that it was rather unfair that Jenks keeps getting promoted thanks to Fatty's good work!!!