The Secret Series (Enid Blyton) has one or two narrow escapes from being detained by them. The novel was originally written as a serial and, in 1938, published as a full-length novel. It was one of Enid Blyton's earliest adventure novels, preceding The Famous Five, The Five Find-Outers, The Adventure Series, The Secret Seven, and school books which would appear in following years. The children, reunited with their parents again (and Jack now adopted as part of the family), go on holiday at the rugged Cornish coast with a family friend, Miss Dimity ("Dimmy", who would appear in several further books in the series), and
Enid Blyton events in their local community. Blyton rewrote the stories so they could be adapted into cartoons, which appeared in "Mickey Mouse Weekly" in 1951 with illustrations by George Brook. The French author Evelyne Lallemand continued the series in the 1970s, producing an additional twelve books, nine of which were translated into English by Anthea Bell between 1983 and 1987. Blyton's Noddy, about a little wooden boy from Toyland, first appeared in the "Sunday Graphic" on 5 June 1949, and in November that year "Noddy Goes to Toyland", the first of at least two dozen books in the series, was published.