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#49-54: Nancy Springer, The Enola Holmes Mysteries
A month ago I watched and adored the Enola Holmes movie on Netflix, and immediately wanted to read the books to see how they were different. Quite a bit, actually!
The basic premise of Enola being abandoned by her mother and then running away from home herself is unchanged, but in the movie she's 16, and in the book she's 14, although everyone she meets assumes she is much older. The main intrigue of the "missing marquess" is the title subject of the first book, but he is also much younger (perhaps 10) and there's no political subplot and certainly no potential romantic interest there! Most of the rest of the movie plot is newly fabricated, although the arranged meeting at the British Museum shows up in the second book.
That said, although I thought the movie was superior to the first book, the series taken as a whole was just as enjoyable. Each volume is rather short, aimed at middle grade readers, and although each one provides a different mystery to be solved, they build upon each other to present a connected story. Enola regularly outwits her brother Sherlock by interpreting clues involving feminine concerns such as flowers and fashion that he has no context for appreciating. Plus there is much more room on the page than the screen to explore the various codes and ciphers that Enola encounters.
A second Enola Holmes movie is coming out soon, and Springer has also started writing a second series of Enola adventures following the first movie's success!
Content warnings: The heavy dose of classism you would expect from Victorian London, plus repeated references to the Romani people as "gypsies", especially in the first and last books - although newer editions of the last book have changed the title to avoid advertising it on the cover.
The basic premise of Enola being abandoned by her mother and then running away from home herself is unchanged, but in the movie she's 16, and in the book she's 14, although everyone she meets assumes she is much older. The main intrigue of the "missing marquess" is the title subject of the first book, but he is also much younger (perhaps 10) and there's no political subplot and certainly no potential romantic interest there! Most of the rest of the movie plot is newly fabricated, although the arranged meeting at the British Museum shows up in the second book.
That said, although I thought the movie was superior to the first book, the series taken as a whole was just as enjoyable. Each volume is rather short, aimed at middle grade readers, and although each one provides a different mystery to be solved, they build upon each other to present a connected story. Enola regularly outwits her brother Sherlock by interpreting clues involving feminine concerns such as flowers and fashion that he has no context for appreciating. Plus there is much more room on the page than the screen to explore the various codes and ciphers that Enola encounters.
A second Enola Holmes movie is coming out soon, and Springer has also started writing a second series of Enola adventures following the first movie's success!
Content warnings: The heavy dose of classism you would expect from Victorian London, plus repeated references to the Romani people as "gypsies", especially in the first and last books - although newer editions of the last book have changed the title to avoid advertising it on the cover.