Jennings' Diary: 5 Paperback – 12 Jan. 2008

I read some of the Jennings books as a child and I thought I’d give this a go as an adult because I don’t remember reading this particular one and I like books which are diaries. This is a jolly book. You can’t help liking Jennings, who is full of schoolboy enthusiasms. You also can’t help sometimes feeling sympathetic towards the teachers who have to try and rein in some of his sillier notions. The book isn’t written in a diary format but is a well-structured story. It’s one of those great British books where not much actually happens and there is a lot of polite dialogue and amusing misunderstandings. It’s good Sunday comfort reading.

I recently re-bought this book as I had it as a child and loved it. The stories are dated now, being set in a 1950s prep school, but they remain hilarious. This series should really be much better known.In this book, Jennings keeps a diary, whilst all kinds of hilarious things happen around him. The author shows his understanding of boys in showing how none of the diary entries really bring out the drama of the school term! Indeed many entries are impenetrable without some knowledge of the events described.Thoroughly recommended.

This book although aging , has been well looked after. I am gathering a collection and this has provided one of the missing links.

Brilliant quality just what I had hoped for

English in it is a bit too old fashioned for the recipient.

Jennings not at his best in this story. The humour does't flow as usual. Odd that there's a reference to a previous book, I've not seen that with Jennings before. Buckeridge had a bad hair day or let someone else write it using his name!

I remember many of the Jennings books, from when I read them as a child about 50 years ago. Better than Billy Bunter and Harry Potter, the Jennings books relate the misfortunes that Jennings gets up to with his friends. Jennings always means well and doesn't deliberately intend to look for trouble, but trouble does follow him around far too closely for his liking.Jennings Diary is a title I clearly remember, even if I cannot recall the plot. I love that these books are available on paperback and audiobook, but why aren't they available to read on Kindle? I think the publisher has missed a trick here, as children don't read enough these days and this series would quickly get them reading one book after another. The books would also enable me to read them on my Kindle Fire, while not having the books propped open in front of me and giving away what series I am reading.

I barely remember any of this Jennings book from when I was younger, which made it a good read today. The tale of Jennings' diary ties together four major events this term from the missing cufflink to the form three museum.My copy was, disappointingly, the 1980s 'updated' text, which puts the coinage into metric and makes another part of the story seem less likely. However I don't imagine much else has changed, and perhaps with a goal of modern children reading for themselves it is not too bad a change to make.I found this to be the best flowing of the Jennings books I've reread so far as an adult. The overall concept of the diary is used very well to tie what would otherwise be separate strands together. This is one of the things that makes me love Jennings far more than Just William books, which are mostly just a stream of disconnected short stories.I think it would be fair to say this is one of the best novels in the set, although if I couldn't remember it, maybe there is better to come.