Start with Five on a Treasure Island if you want the Famous Five, and with The Enchanted Wood if the reader is younger than about seven. Enid Blyton wrote several entirely unrelated series pitched at quite different reading levels, so the question of where to start is really the question of which series, and the honest answer depends on the child rather than on Blyton.
Five on a Treasure Island is the correct Famous Five opening and is not optional: it is the book in which the cousins meet George and her dog, the island is established and the formula is set. Everything after it assumes the group already exists. Within the rest of the series, order barely matters — the books are near-interchangeable holiday adventures, and Blyton wrote twenty-one of them.
Before you hand these over
Two facts an adult buying these should have, stated plainly rather than as advice.
The books have been widely and repeatedly criticised for racism, sexism and class attitudes. The criticism is not a recent invention — the BBC declined to broadcast her work for years from the 1930s onward, and complaints about golliwog characters, foreign villains, servants written as comic types and girls told to stay behind and make the tea have followed the books across their whole publishing history.
Separately, and this is the part that catches people out: many of the texts have been revised in later editions, sometimes substantially and usually without announcement on the cover. Names, dialect, punishments, food and racial content have all been altered at various points by various publishers, and some editions have been re-revised again since. Which text a child actually gets depends on the edition you buy, and there is no reliable way to tell from a listing. If it matters to you either way — whether you want the original text or specifically do not — check the copyright page and the publication year of the printing rather than of the first edition.
The Faraway Tree books, in order
This is the one sequence where order genuinely matters, because each book assumes the last. The Enchanted Wood introduces the tree whose top reaches a different land every week. The magic Faraway Tree is the best known of the three and has the strongest lands; read it straight on. The folk of the Faraway Tree introduces a new child and is the weakest of the trio — worth reading only if the first two landed.
Starting the Famous Five
Five on a Treasure Island first, then Five Go Adventuring Again — a Christmas mystery with a tutor and a secret passage — while the introductions are fresh, then Five Run Away Together, back on Kirrin Island. After these three the books become largely self-contained and sequence stops mattering.
The Famous Five at their best
From the strong middle of the run: Five Go to Smuggler's Top, set in a house above marshland with tunnels beneath it, is frequently named the best-plotted book in the series. Five on Kirrin Island Again gives George the most to do, which is usually what readers want more of. Five Fall into Adventure introduces Jo, a character who divides readers sharply, and shows how far the formula will stretch.
The other adventure series
The Island of Adventure opens the Adventure series, which is longer, more atmospheric and pitched slightly older — the natural next step for a reader who has outgrown Kirrin. The Secret Seven is shorter and simpler than the Famous Five, and is better placed as a step down for a younger sibling than as a step up.
The boarding-school books
These are the most sequential of all Blyton's series, because the characters age a school year per book. First Term at Malory Towers begins Darrell Rivers's six years at a Cornish cliff-top school and really does have to come first — the whole pleasure is watching one cohort change. Second Form at Malory Towers continues it. The Twins at St. Clare's opens Blyton's other school series, which is more comic and less earnest; read it to see which school suits the reader before committing to six books of either.
What is not here
Noddy, the Secret series and the Five Find-Outers all have their advocates and none appear in this list. Noddy in particular is a picture-book proposition rather than a chapter-book one and belongs to a different reading stage entirely.
Follow the full ordered path here: Enid Blyton books in order: where to start with the Famous Five.
