''The Valley of Adventure'' (published in 1947) is a popular children's book by Enid Blyton. It is the third book in the

Adventure Series ''The Adventure Series'' by Enid Blyton, a prolific English children's author, is a series of eight children's novels. These books feature the same child characters: Philip, Jack, Dinah, and Lucy-Ann, along with several adult characters. J ...

. The first edition of the book was illustrated by

Stuart Tresilian Cecil Stuart Hazell TresilianHis birth was registered as "Cecil Stewart Hazell Tresilian" but he was baptised with the spelling "Stuart", and was known professionally as Stuart Tresilian. Steve Holland Bear Alley, 26 February 2014 (1891-1974) wa ...

. It is one of the few novels by Enid Blyton with a second world war theme.

Summary

When Bill gets a new plane, the children (Phillip, Dinah, Jack and Lucy-Anne) are allowed to go on a night flight to the countryside to spend a short holiday studying nature. But the children on accident, board the wrong plane, and find themselves being flown by two men, Juan and Pepi. The foursome escape from the plane, and hide in a cave behind a waterfall, hidden in vines. Meanwhile Jack discovers a prisoner named Otto who gives him a mysterious map that leads to a treasure, hidden somewhere in the valley. The children after many days of scrambling and climbing rocks, discover a cave with priceless statues taken throughout the country during the war. The children discover the statues were taken from various churches at the time, in order to be hidden from the Nazis.

Historical references

The second world war is mentioned a few times in the novel. The treasure, found in the cave in the novel are later revealed to be statues taken from churches throughout Austria and hidden in the cave for safety from the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

.The Germans are described as 'the enemy' throughout the book, and it is not revealed that they are the Nazis until the second last chapter. Despite what many readers think, ''The Valley of Adventure'' is not the only semi historical novel by Enid Blyton. Novels such as ''

The Adventurous Four ''The Adventurous Four'' is a series of two novels and one short story written by Enid Blyton. The stories revolve around twins Jill and Mary, their elder brother Tom and their fisher friend Andy. The characters are from World War II England while ...

'' and ''The Children of Kiddilan'' also have elements of the Second World War.

References

External links

''The Valley of Adventure'' at the EBS website
1947 British novels Novels by Enid Blyton 1947 children's books Novels set in Austria Macmillan Publishers books {{1940s-child-novel-stub