Help from my literary and British friends?

[gridlore]

In the wake of HBP and general memories of good young adult fiction, I'm struggling to remember the name of a series of British YA fiction books i treasured as a kid. I think I got them (or Craig got them, and I stole them) from the British grandparents. The books (and there were several) concerns a group of four friends. In their early teens, they have Kipling-esque adventures all over the world. One of them owned a parrot, and one was obsessed with the Great Auk, an extinct seabird. From the writing, I suspect that the books were written in the 1920s or 30s.

Not much to go on, I know, but it's been bugging me for days.

A lot of great stuff from those days. Craig and I devored the Tom Swift series, along with The Hardy Boys and even the wonderfully English Biggles books.

Comments

[isomeme.livejournal.com]

Enid Blyton (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?userid=Ft1ddZVAUt&ath=Enid+Blyton) was the author. She did several series, of which the "...of Adventure" series is probably the one you're remembering.

I loved those books with a burning passion. In retrospect, I realize they were part of Dad's effort to civilize us colonials.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Those would be them! Thanks.

[collie13.livejournal.com]

Oh, gosh, I remember those! Lots of fun, and she had several series going. She was amazingly prolific. ;)

[kengr]

Odds are you can find etext versions at Project Gutenberg. Or if not, opne of the alt.binaries.ebook.* (or a.b.e-book.*) groups will likely have them posted from time to time.