Way back in 2016 I had just started working in the library (can’t believe I’ve been there seven years already!) I searched the catalogue to see what we had in the way of Blytons and I compiled a list of what I wanted to borrow – though I should point out that the majority of this list is books by other authors! The library had very little, if anything, from Blyton that I didn’t already have.

In a blog post titled Best of Blyton at the Library (how wrong I was there…) I wrote about 19 books I wanted to borrow and 4 I highlighted as things I should probably avoid. Naturally I haven’t borrowed all the ones I wanted to but have borrowed some of the ones I knew I shouldn’t have… and some other stuff besides.

This post, then, is a sort of follow-up to the ‘Best’ post linked above, summarising how I got on with the books listed and some others, though of course I have already reviewed all the books individually.

I can’t say I entirely regret borrowing most of these, as I got blog content out of them, but somehow there’s still some regret in there.

When’s a Blyton not a Blyton? When someone else wrote it…

Let’s start with the straightforward continuations.

Malory Towers continued by Pamela Cox

The library had all six of these, which chronicle Felicity and her year group’s time at Malory Towers after Darrell, Sally et al leave – and I’ve read the first two.

New Term at Malory Towers
Summer Term at Malory Towers

The others are Winter Term at Malory Towers, Fun and Games at Malory Towers, Secrets at Malory Towers and Goodbye Malory Towers.

These I’d have to say are the best of the worst. Cox doesn’t get Blyton’s style quite right and there’s a bit too much of the girl’s inner monologues, schemings and naval gazings for me, plus Cox uses a lot of words telling us stuff in unnecessary detail which Blyton would have shown us in her quick sketchy way, but over-all they are actually a reasonably decent school stories.

If they were new characters at a new school, inspired by Blyton they’d be pretty great. As Blyton books they are just about good.

I really should read the other four as there’s a chance that they get better as they go along.

The Naughtiest Girl continued by Anne Digby

For some reason I only listed four of these in my original post but there are in fact six continuation novels –

The Naughtiest Girl Keeps a Secret
The Naughtiest Girl Helps a Friend
The Naughtiest Girl Saves the Day
Well Done, The Naughtiest Girl
The Naughtiest Girl Wants to Win
The Naughtiest Girl Marches On

I rather wish there had only been four as I borrowed all six and suffered through them. I was sorely disappointed with these as they seem to be aimed at either a younger age group or perhaps a more immature age group than the originals. All the complexities of the characters are lost as Elizabeth becomes rather a caricature who leaps before she looks in every possible circumstance. It’s a shame as there were some ideas and themes that I liked but these books had neither Blyton’s style nor her familiar characters.

Bizzy and the Bedtime Bear

This is one of seven books in the Enid Blyton’s Enchanted World series, I’m not sure if the library has any of the others but one was definitely enough for me.

Although this is a Faraway Tree continuation it appears to have been written for even younger readers – or again, less mature ones. The Faraway Tree books are, themselves, aimed at youngish readers, they are not too complicated, but somehow these follow-ons are such so immature. They are full of modern slang and bear very little resemblance to the series they are supposed to be following on from.

Bizzy and the Bedtime Bear

The Secret Seven continued by Pamela Butchart

I don’t think that this was out when I wrote the original post, but if it had been, it would have been included. I did end up borrowing it from the library, and while it’s not as bad as some of the books above, it’s not great either.

While the plot is decent enough the writing is full of immature bodily function humour and cringe-worthy slang. Kids love that sort of stuff, I assume, as it’s in a lot of very popular modern books, but it makes this laughable as a continuation to an established series. Maybe I have the wrong idea about continuations but to me you should be able to read some or all of the original books and then read any continuations and believe they are actually part of the same series.

Secret Seven and the Mystery of the Skull

Adaptations of adaptations

There are only two books that fall into this category, thankfully.

The Island of Adventure
The Sea of Adventure

These are the novelisations of the already not-very-good TV series. Instead of adding anything of interest, or explaining anything that wasn’t clear on screen, these just try to describe the events you would have been seeing if you had watched the episode. It really doesn’t work very well at all.

Awaiting judgement

I didn’t get to everything on that list so the St Clare’s continuations by Pamela Cox, and the rewrite of The Riddle (Mystery) that Never Was are still to be judged, so watch this space…