Jennings, written by Anthony Buckeridge (born in 1912) is a classic but somewhat overly positive idea of old fashioned boarding school life. An example of what I mean is the fact that nobody ever gets caned and nothing nasty seems to happen to anyone, ever! Of course I'm not saying the books have to be filled with blood and gore but it would be a nice break from 'punishments' such as missing footy and 50 'beastly' lines to do before tea. Nevertheless they are very funny and light hearted if you're into that sort of thing.
Jennings meets up with his pal Darbishire who is 'a bit of a weed' and is always talking about his father who apparently knows everything. Jennings however is sporty and his head is brimming with 'hare-brained schemes' and rather eccentric plans to get him and Darbishire out of trouble. Their friends are, 'Bod' (real name Temple for some reason), 'Atkins' and 'Venebals' who can be usually relied on to get them out of a 'scrape' and their favourite master, very kind and rather elderly, Mr Carter.
Jennings usually gets himself and unfortunately Darbishire into trouble so they dive into a ditch or two and end up rolling down a few hills. The adventures they go on usually consist of going to town without 'permish' and creeping back to school with masters round every corner. A particularly funny episode was when Jennings fell into an extremely muddy lake, got completely encrusted in mud and spent a sleepless night fretting over what 'matron' would say next morning.
I used to love these books and still to this day have almost a full collection but now as you may have gathered, I'm slightly cynical of them even though they are very cheery and can be quite funny. I think they might appeal more to the younger generation who haven’t been to a boarding school.
They aren’t as popular as they once were but now are being republished and I've seen them lining the shelves of many a bookshop and my younger brother still seems to enjoy them hugely!