Secret Seven series by Enid Blyton

The Author

Born in South London, Blyton was the eldest of three children, and showed an early interest in music and reading. She was educated at St. Christopher's School, Beckenham, and - having decided not to pursue her music - at Ipswich High School, where she trained as a kindergarten teacher. She taught for five years before her 1924 marriage to editor Hugh Pollock, with whom she had two daughters. This marriage ended in divorce, and Blyton remarried in 1943, to surgeon Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters. She died in 1968, one year after her second husband.

Blyton was a prolific author of children's books, who penned an estimated 800 books over about 40 years. Her stories were often either children's adventure and mystery stories, or fantasies involving magic. Notable series include: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, The Five Find-Outers, Noddy, The Wishing Chair, Mallory Towers, and St. Clare's.

According to the Index Translationum, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare.

The Books

The Secret Seven Society consists of Peter, his sister Janet, and their friends Jack, Colin, George, Pam and Barbara. While munching rock-buns and guzzling home-made lemonade, the Seven puzzle over peculiar goings-on in their local community, aiming to solve mysteries and put things right.

The Secret Seven, which is the first of the fifteen titles in the official Secret Seven series, was published in 1949. The story has some exciting parts and the wintry setting adds its own eeriness. Going out at night into the cold to solve a mystery is the sort of thing the Seven become quite used to doing.

The books in suggested reading order
The Secret Seven
Secret Seven Adventure
Well Done, Secret Seven
Secret Seven on the Trail
Go Ahead, Secret Seven
Good Work, Secret Seven
Secret Seven Win Through
Three Cheers, Secret Seven
Secret Seven Mystery
Puzzle for the Secret Seven
Secret Seven Fireworks
Good old secret seven
Shock for the Secret Seven
Look Out, Secret Seven
Fun for the Secret Seven