Sabotage At St. Clare's (The O'Sullivan Twins - Enid Blyton)

Member Name: keeperofthematri

Product:	The O'Sullivan Twins - Enid Blyton
Date:	28/06/09 (55 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well plotted with characters you care about or hate!

Disadvantages: Slightly dated in parts

It's Easter term as Pat & Isabel O'Sullivan return to the first form for their second term at St Clare's. Starting at the school with them this term are three new girls, the first being their "featherhead" cousin Alison whom their Aunt Sarah has decided to send to St. Clare's after hearing how much the twins liked it. Then there's artist's daughter Lucy Oriell who is good at everything (although she finds maths difficult) & Margery Fenworthy, a bad tempered girl with a secret who the first formers suspect of being almost sixteen & rather too old to be a first former.

Like the twins in the first book, Alison's shocked at having to do jobs for the fifth formers. She doesn't know how to light fires or do any of the other things that might be expected of her and she gets little sympathy from the rest of her form when she gets back to the common room after making a pig's ear of lighting a fire and then burning Rita George's French prep by mistake.

But, that's small potatoes compared to what Margery goes through. She's initially disliked by the first formers who can't understand why the school mistresses tolerate her rudeness in class. When the first form finally decide to give her a chance she ruins it almost straight away by getting into a row with Miss Lewis, the history teacher. This doesn't go down well with the rest of her form who decide to send her to Coventry & agree not to clap her if she scores any goals in the lacrosse match that's about to be played. Margery overhears Pat reminding the others not to clap & threatens to get even with her. Pat's knitting gets sabotaged & then her nature notebooks get stamped into some mud & the first formers accuse Margery of carrying out her revenge threat. But is she the real culprit?

Blyton adopts a change in plot structure for this second book in the series. Instead of a large number of isolated incidents taking place throughout the term we have an ongoing plot thread concerning Margery, a midnight feast that has consequences which reasonate throughout the first two thirds of the book & plot threads concerning Lucy & Mam'zelle. The lessons of the first book:- Give People A Second Chance & Never Judge A Book By It's Cover are repeated here.

The book is very entertaining & should keep your child occupied for a couple of hours. Margery is a great character & it's a pity that she gets moved out of the first form in the third book in the series. This book was first published in 1942 & may, like other Blyton stories, have been updated since then. The version I have was printed in 1969. The series comprises:-

+ The Twins At St. Clare's (1941)
+ The O'Sullivan Twins (1942)
+ Summer Term At St. Clare's (1943)
+ Second Form At St. Clare's (1944)
+ Claudine At St. Clare's (1944)
+ Fifth Formers At St. Clare's (1945)

At time of writing, this book is available to buy new from Amazon for £3.49.

Publisher: Egmont Books Ltd; New edition edition (4 Jul 2005)
Language English
ISBN-10: 1405219785
ISBN-13: 978-1405219785

Used copies of the book are available from 1p.

Summary: Second in the St. Clare's series