Enid Blyton for Grown-Ups reimagines classic characters for millennials

THE Famous Five grew up and got fair dinkum, with author Sophie Hamley’s Five Go Down Under the latest in a parody series of “Enid Blyton for Grown-Ups” books.

THE Famous Five grew up and got fair dinkum.

Author Sophie Hamley’s Five Go Down Under is the latest in the “Enid Blyton for Grown-Ups” series, in which the Famous Five characters go on a gap year to Australia.

Others in the series have seen the adventure-seeking gang go gluten free, give up booze, get beach body ready and climb the property ladder as a way of modernising the original titles for a generation who grew up reading Blyton’s original books.

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Author Sophie Hamley with her Enid Blyton for Grown-Ups book, Five Go Down Under. Picture: David Swift

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“People who know these characters from having read them as children, are looking at them as grown-ups and it’s kind of a wink and a nod to their own lives,” Ms Hamley said.

She confesses she jammed as many fun Aussie cliches into the book as possible, from drinking, surfing, wildlife, budgie smugglers and even a fictional soapie Near and Far.

“I pretty much made a list — what could I throw in that Australian readers might think ‘oh yeah, every tourist focuses on that’,” she said.

Author Enid Blyton’s books and characters remain popular to this day.

She said the popularity of the parody books in reinventing the titles proved the original characters created by Blyton in the 1940s were still much-loved.

“They remain relevant not necessarily in the detail, which would seem a little old fashioned these days, but that idea of a group of friends that can have adventures together and who are curious.”

Five Go Down Under is out now (Hachette, $19.99).

Collect 15 of Enid Blyton’s classics, beginning with The Famous Five: Five on a Treasure Island, free with a collector case when you purchase the Sunday Herald Sun on February 4.

Details: EnidBlytonCollection.com.au