This is the Enid Blyton book that my mother gave me when I ventured a comment that Noddy and Faraway Trees were babyish. How right she was, a good solid family saga with no ginger beer fuelled school holiday romps and no smugglers caves nor foiled robberies. This first (for me) almost grown up novel about flawed families, strong bonds and relationships and an awareness of the right to happiness in an imperfect world led me on to such other "real" stories as House at the Corner and the hard-hitting (for Blyton) Six Bad Boys. Too long unavailable, most bookshops only consider Famous Five and nursery fare worth restocking, I was delighted to see on amazon that a new edition is coming out soon. Hope it will be around in a few years when my daughter is old enough to recognise the quality of the tale. My old copy was lost years ago, but the characters and images have stayed with me for decades.