The Enid Blyton mould
Rachna Singh
 3 Novels
Shashi Deshpande. Puffin Books. Pages 379. Rs 295.

As a child with passion for reading, all my summer holidays were spent in the library sitting in a har-backed chair reading the adventures of Famous Five or Secret Seven or Adventurous Four et al. The wonderful world created by Enid Blyton was completely enthralling and captivating to a child of nine. Even today, almost three decades later, a book by Enid Blyton brings back those wonderful summers when my friends and I would try our hand at sleuthing or disguising like "Fatty".

Today’s generation does not share this fascination for Enid Blyton. Instead, they gravitate towards books like the Goosebumps series. So when I came across 3 Novels by Shashi Deshpande, I expected it to be a part of the Goosebumps ilk. What I found instead was a pleasant package of three mystery novels with some of the Enid Blyton aura intact.

A Summer Adventure, the first of the three novels, is set in a small town of India. The characters, Ravi, Dinu, Minu and Polly, are reminiscent of the Enid Blyton characters of Fatty, Pip, Daisy and Beth. Daring robberies in and around a small town send the little sleuths headlong into a "lovely adventure". To their immense satisfaction, the culprits are caught before they can do any harm and the adventure "ends happily".

The Hidden Treasure takes the reader to Kaka’s farmhouse with its quaint rural beauty and the tinkling of the bells, as the herds of cows and buffaloes move through the village. Against this backdrop, emerges the mystery of the ancestral treasure buried in a temple. Ravi, Dinu, Minu and Polly find themselves in the middle of a frantic search for the hidden treasure. Battling the bad guys, scrambling through the kidnapping drama, searching through an old "haunted" house, Deshpande sets a fast pace for the sleuthing foursome. The fast-paced drama set against the lethargic meanderings of a village life makes for interesting reading.

The mystery is very reminiscent of Enid Blyton’s The Mystery of the Missing Necklace. The Only Witness moves the readers to Bombay and to a dangerous mystery with bank robbers and kidnappers at large. This time the naivety of Polly, a spitting image of Blyton’s Beth, leads to the kidnapping of Sanju. However, with impressive detecting skills and the help of the ubiquitous Akbar and Joe, the little sleuths again manage to save the day.

The book ends with our very own homegrown detectives giving themselves a pat on the back: "Lovely! Isn’t it wonderful how we made everything come out all right?"

Deshpande, with a Blyton penchant, has successfully woven a tapestry of fun, frolic and adventure. The perspective is, of course, that of a child with its mixture of naivety and child-like wisdom. This is a reasonably successful attempt at resurrecting the art of writing simple adventure stories for children with a distinct Enid stamp. This is also a refreshing change from J. K. Rowling and R. L Stine. A must-read for all nine-year olds and fans of Enid Blyton.

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