Bayangkan! Ada cahaya lampu berkelap-kelip di Puri Tebing - puri yang sudah bertahun-tahun lamanya tidak lagi dihuni orang. Peter, Pam, dan sepupu mereka, Brock, berniat membongkar misteri ini. Kemudian mereka menyadari bahwa di relung-relung puri kuno itu ada bahaya yang mengancam mereka...
Enid Mary Blyton (1897–1968) was an English author of children's books.
Born in South London, Blyton was the eldest of three children, and showed an early interest in music and reading. She was educated at St. Christopher's School, Beckenham, and - having decided not to pursue her music - at Ipswich High School, where she trained as a kindergarten teacher. She taught for five years before her 1924 marriage to editor Hugh Pollock, with whom she had two daughters. This marriage ended in divorce, and Blyton remarried in 1943, to surgeon Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters. She died in 1968, one year after her second husband.
Blyton was a prolific author of children's books, who penned an estimated 800 books over about 40 years. Her stories were often either children's adventure and mystery stories, or fantasies involving magic. Notable series include: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, The Five Find-Outers, Noddy, The Wishing Chair, Mallory Towers, and St. Clare's.
According to the Index Translationum, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare.
I was about to absolutely go off at this book. I was about to call it unoriginal, a mash-up of every Blyton trope in her repertoire; a summer holiday, a deserted castle, strange lights at night, secret passages, smugglers, quintessential English pomposity. I was about to say that every element in this book had been better realised somewhere in Blyton's vast bibliography.
But then, I find out that The Secret of Cliff Castle was released in 1940, one of Blyton's earliest adventure stories! Instead of viewing this book as a tired rehash of Blyton's tried-and-tested ideas, The Secret of Cliff House can be seen as one of the earliest stepping stones in Blyton's journey to creating some of the world's most best-loved children's adventure stories.
It's a fun enough book, with a plot so simple you could guess it from the title, I'm not going to go over it here. A bit over-simple in fact, but hey, Blyton is just getting started and in this story I can see the roots of much of her greatest work - Famous Five, The Adventurous Four, The Adventure Series. In fact peeps, don't bother reading this one at all, go straight to 'The Castle of Adventure' which is like this but times a hundred.
A very early Enid Blyton book written under the pseudonym Mary Pollock. It features three children who have an adventure at Cliff Castle. All the usual Blyton favourites are here, secret passages, stolen goods, a midnight outing and of course, brave children who manage to outwit the bad guys. All of these ingredients would later be refined in her later series . I found it a very interesting read but it doesn't hold a candle to any of her later adventure stories.
This seems to be one of Blyton's earlier works and appears to have been written prior to the first of her Famous Five books. This story involves three children: Pam, Peter, and Brock, and they are going on a holiday to a sea side village. At the village there is a castle at the top of a bluff, but it is not a real castle, just a modern building that has been built by an eccentric millionaire who died years ago and whoever inherited it never took any interest in it.
Being kids they decide to go and explore the castle, and being kids they find a way inside. What they don't realise is that some crooks have also found their way into the castle and are using as a base for their nefarious deeds. As can be expected from an Enid Blyton mystery novel the kids end up tricking the crooks and capturing them, then the police then turn up, arrest them, and the children are told how wonderful they are.
As I said this is an earlier work, so the story is shorter and fairly basic. The only strange thing that goes on are the mysterious lights in the castle, and of course the villagers are telling the children to stay away (though for some reason their guardians are not particularly concerned). Also, there is no dog in this adventure, though the use of the dog as a part of the group seemed to only work in the Famous Five. Timmy, as I have mentioned, is one mean mutt, where as in most of the other stories the dog simply tags along and never actually helps solve the mystery.
This is not one of her better books, but was probably written in her transition from fairy tales to mystery stories and other forms of children's books. I note that there are also a number of stories set in a school, and a number set in a circus (though I do not know exactly when they were written). In the same way that the Faraway Tree stories were probably (in my opinion) the best of her fairy tales, the Famous Five were the best of her mystery stories. Since I am reading through all of the Enid Blyton books that I have (and also trying to get my hands on the rest of the Secret Seven books, if that is at all possible – doh, I knew I forgot to look for something when I was in London), this one does fall on my list.
I used to read this book over and over again when I was a child. My Mom had a hardcover copy from her childhood. It had no dust jacket. I wrote my name on the cover in pen; Mom was not pleased, but I think it resolved in accepting that children will do such things. My Mom must have treasured the book more than I had the capacity to understand at the time. Regarding the book itself: I remember Smuggler Ben being upside down and backwards? You’d have to flip the book both ways to read it. Delightful. I never read Smuggler Ben. I would probably go off to read something else and return to read Cliff Castle yet again. I fought this idiosyncrasy for a long time; only recently did I lean in to re-reading as often as I care to. It’s my cherished way.
For the longest time I couldn’t find a copy of Cliff Castle. I’m sure it has gone in and out of print. I didn’t even remember what it was called when I began looking. I just remembered my well-loved hardcover book that was once belonged to my Mother. It was Googling “Smuggler Ben” that got me the title. In those days (mid aughts?) Amazon didn’t have the selection it does now. I hadn’t yet heard of Abe’s Books, and I was years away from owning an e-reader. It was fluke that led to payoff. I found (and recognized!) a copy of Cliff Castle on a crowded table at Indigo, the kind that has books for $5 or $10. What a happy find. I’ve let over a decade go by before actually reading the book.
My take on the story: meh. I’ve been reading plenty of children’s literature lately, and this story isn’t terribly good. Or I should say that it’s not terribly good to a 30-year old who only remembered revelling in her special book and the enchanting story within. To a very young Sarah (likely first or second grade), this story was sublime. It will always be special to me. 2/5 for story but 5/5 for nostalgia.
I remember this book being one of my favourites when I was younger, alongside the Malory Towers series, of course.
I remember I used to find every book I read by this author to be so magical, and that in them, anything was possible. Her books really encouraged me to delve deeper into reading, and her books truly made me discover how much I loved, and love, to read.
My copy of this book is a beautiful old one, the third impression in fact. I love the illustrations, and I'm lucky enough to own one with a dust jacket intact. Peter, Pam and Brock star in this thrilling tale about a secret happening in a nearby Castle, plucky British kids with a great sense of fun and appetites to match. Pam is as brave as the boys, and the mystery is of course, solved! Great short story to introduce you to the mysterious world of Enid Blyton!
I was first read this after my enchanted wood phases. And loved it, it was an mystery that had the younger me hooked. And at one point I took it away with me every time I stayed away from home. I alway wanted an Enid Blyton adventure growing up and have the freedom to go off and explore like the children in her books. This is an great book to read to young primary age children.
Hi friends, I am reading this book now. I have borrowed it from Library as I am a high school's student. This book is very nice and full of fun. Please read this book. I am sure you will also rate it 5 stars. It have 3 great and long stories in it. "CUZ READING IS ROOTS OF YOUR BRAIN."