Almost Famous

I noticed the other day that one of the shops in town was advertising a boxed set of the complete Famous Five books, so I mentioned that to a friend who has kids about the right age to enjoy them.

She confessed that she never got into the Famous Five, and then I had to struggle to remember if I'd ever actually read any of the books myself.

I'm sure I did.  I must have.

I have vague recollections of having "I've read some of these books and I know who the characters are" conversations with friends in school.

I just can't remember which books I've read.  There was one with gypsies in it...

The phrase "smuggler's cove" is floating around in my brain, somewhere, but the actual book is called "Five go to Smuggler's Top", and quite frankly, I've just read a synopsis of the plot and I can't say it's ringing any bells.

Where the books particularly forgettable?  Is that why I can't remember anything about them?

Well, there was a dog called Timmy and a girl called George.  And gypsies.

For years I thought The Black Bog Mystery (a book I read and enjoyed when I was the right age to be reading Famous Five books) was part of that series.  But, of course, it clearly wasn't because a) it doesn't have the word "five" in the title, and b) I've just looked it up and it wasn't even written by Enid Blyton.

Lane Mitchell wrote it.  It was quite good, if I recall correctly.  There were twins and mysterious houses and bogs.  Everyone loves a good bog.  I can't remember what the actual mystery was.  I *think* it had something to do with people hiding things in the bog...  I read quite a number of Trixie Beldon, Nancy Drew and other such books at the time and I can't rightly say which plot belonged to which books.

So, somewhere along the lines the only Famous Five book I could actually remember enjoying wasn't actually a Famous Five book at all - just some other kids' mystery novel of dubious memorability.

I always meant to get around the reading the Famous Five.  Maybe I should see if I can get them in German or Estonian - that might make them a bit more interesting.