The Enid Blyton Secret Series

Enid Blyton wrote five adventure novels in the Secret Series. The books are *The Secret Island*, *The Secret of Spiggy Holes*, *The Secret Mountain*, *The Secret of Killimooin* (also published as *The Secret of the Mountain*), and *The Secret of Moon Castle*. A sixth book, *The Secret Valley*, was written by Trevor J. Bolton and released by Award in 2009. In 1996, Cloud 9 Screen Entertainment adapted the series into a television serial.

The first story, *The Secret Island*, follows Peggy and her younger twin siblings, Mike and Nora. After their parents are presumed dead in a car accident, the children live with a harsh aunt and uncle. With help from an orphan boy named Jack, they escape to a deserted island on a nearby lake. There, they build a willow-branch house and bring a cow and chickens for food. They adapt well, but day-trippers nearly discover them, and the police continue searching. Jack is almost caught selling produce at a market. Eventually, the police find the children, and it is revealed that their parents survived the crash. The family reunites, and the Arnolds adopt Jack. Originally a serial, the novel was published in full in 1938 and is one of Blyton's earliest adventure stories, predating her *Famous Five*, *Five Find-Outers*, *Adventure Series*, *Secret Seven*, and school series.

In *The Secret of Spiggy Holes*, the children—now reunited with their parents and Jack adopted—holiday on the rugged Cornish coast with family friend Miss Dimity (called Dimmy, who appears in later books). They become involved in a kidnapping case when they find a boy imprisoned in a nearby castle tower. The boy is Prince Paul of Baronia, a small, remote kingdom (possibly in eastern Europe). The children rescue him and protect him from pursuing kidnappers. They revisit the Secret Island to hide. Paul's father, the King of Baronia, is so grateful that he sends Paul to the same English boarding school as Mike and Jack.

*The Secret Mountain* begins when Captain and Mrs. Arnold apparently crash-land their plane, the White Swallow, in a remote part of Africa. The children, home from school with Dimmy, team up with Prince Paul and fly to Africa in his royal plane, accompanied by his loyal courtiers Ranni and Pilescu. They encounter a secretive African tribe with flaming red hair that lives in tunnels and caves inside a mountain.