The Island of Adventure (The Adventure Series)

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Following the events in The Ship of Adventure, Bill marries Mrs Mannering and adopts all the children as his own. The children call him Bill Smugs due to the fact that he introduced himself under that alias on their first adventure. Whether dealing with forgers, gun-runners, Nazis, traitors, mad scientists or thieves, they frequently find themselves in desperate situations. Their adventures are a step up from those of the Famous Five in that they involve aeroplanes, motor-boats, a cruise-ship, seaplanes and helicopters. And what an ending it is! This is Big Screen action, the sort of scrape Indiana Jones would get caught up in. I won't give it away here, but it's all very nicely done and has a realistic feel to it, even for this adult reader! Overall, very good stuff. Review by Heather from Australia (March 30, 2005)

Philip is perplexed by a strange disembodied voice – until he realizes it's coming from a parrot in the tree! TV films of the first two books, The Island of Adventure and The Castle of Adventure, were made in the UK in 1982 and 1990 respectively. There was also a New Zealand TV series in the 1990s but that was only very loosely based on the original books. Adventure Series Books Note: The following synopsis contains spoilers. If you haven't read the book, you may not want to read this. I've put comments on language changes and other oddities as I went along, because I thought it would make more sense if these are seen in context.The journey under the sea, through a long, long tunnel that connects the mainland to the Isle of Gloom, is very nicely done, and (I think) completely realistic. I had reservations about the thought of a man-made tunnel, but no, Enid Blyton describes a natural underground fissure with a few alterations here and there to make it a little more passable. And the entrance to the tunnel is pretty cool too – down the well! I did wonder, though, why Bill said it would be foolish to go climbing down wells and through underground passages in the dead of night, and that they should wait until morning. Why? Would it be lighter underground during daylight? ;-) The days go by. Some trivia: Jo-Jo's "queer beliefs" become "strange beliefs" in the 1988 edition. And the word "to-morrow" loses its hyphen. My favorites are "Castle of Adventure", "Valley of Adventure" (her masterpiece), "Sea of Adventure" and "Circus of Adventure". So buy a modern edition (unlike mine). And, if you do, set your expectations impartially low, try to tolerate the occasional out-of-date ejaculation, and enjoy. I have to admit that Enid Blyton is one of my guilty pleasures in-between reading novels, (auto)biographies and non-fiction books on WW II.

A film based on the book was released in the United Kingdom in 1982. It was directed by Anthony Squire and stars Norman Bowler as Bill, Wilfrid Brambell as Uncle Jocelyn and Eleanor Summerfield as Aunt Polly. [1] There was also a New Zealand television series, in which the first episode is based on The Island of Adventure.

The Adventure Squad (by Dave Morris)

Observe how Jo-Jo has been given a makeover. He's even stopped rolling his eyes and become simply shifty-eyed. The older, non-PC version is more realistic, in my opinion. Subsequent references to rolling eyes have been eliminated, except for one stray instance (probably an oversight – no pun intended). To be honest, it wasn't reading, it was sharing the adventures with the characters, they did get into some predicaments, ones we all dreamed about getting into ourselves as kids in real life!