I’ve done two of these posts already, but here I am with enough material for a third post. Books about bookshops, libraries, booklovers and so on are always full of literary references. However, most of them are references to works in the public domain – lots of Jane Austin, the Brontës, Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, and so on. It’s not exactly rare, but it’s less common for copyright protected works to be mentioned – there’s probably a risk (however small) of complaints coming in about it. And yet – Blyton is quite often.

Of the 150 books I read this year, 9 mentioned Blyton – that’s 6%. (One was non-fiction and so will be included in a non-fiction post). Some of them are perhaps expected, Children’s books set in a bookshop, for example. Others perhaps less so. I think it says a lot that Blyton is still referenced so often, by all sorts of different authors.

Tilly and the Bookwanderers – Anna James

This is the first in a series of books about Tilly, who lives above her family’s bookshop and who can wander into books. She never wanders into an Enid Blyton book as that’s pretty risky copyright infringement-wise. But she does still get a couple of mentions.

Jack, the bookshop 19 year old café cook is always trying to recreate cakes from books.

“He’s trying to make pop cakes, like the ones in the Enid Blyton books Tilly explained. “But he’s run out of vanilla.”

…

“Why do you have honey on your forehead?”
“I’m experimenting with pop cakes,” he said, holding up an ice cube tray filled with sticky honey. Remember in the Faraway Tree books by Enid Blyton, they eat those cakes that explode with honey when you bite into them? I’m going to freeze the honey so that I can bake it in the middle of the cupcakes. At least, that’s the plan. The honey is proving… well, a little uncooperative.”

The Library of Lost and Found – Phaedra Patrick

This is quite an interesting story about Martha, a librarian whose life is almost being overtaken by all the things she does to help other people. Then she finds a mysterious book of fairytales with a dedication from her late grandmother (Zelda) and starts to delve into her difficult family’s past.

She has some help from Owen, a second-hand bookshop owner as she tries to work out where the book came from.

She was pleased to find that her and Owen’s conversation wasn’t stilted at all, as they resumed their discussion about books. This time they talked about ones from their childhoods.

Martha chose Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree because she loved the idea that creatures lived in a tree, in an everyday forest. Owen preferred Treasure Island. It offers true escapism, buccaneers and buried gold,’ he said. ‘What more could a boy want from a book?’

…

She peered in through the window at the display, at a vintage edition of The Hobbit, old train magazines and a full series of Famous Fives piled haphazardly. The sight of Anne and Timmy on the covers made her heart flip. They were her favourite characters, though Zelda said they were too middle class and that she preferred the tomboy, George.

Something New at the Borrow A Bookshop – Kiley Dunbar

Joy is staying at the Borrow a Bookshop to set up a computerised till system and online presence, and she has her daughter Radia with her. Radia is almost six and hasn’t ever been to school or nursery, and has only just discovered that children her age usually have started school.

She’d been outraged at the discovery, and after watching every episode of Mallory Towers and The Worst Witch on iPlayer (shows she wasn’t really old enough for but she’d insisted she was), she’d developed a deeply romantic notion of what school would be like if only they stayed somewhere long enough for her to actually go.

A nice reference despite the misspelling – and not the first time I’ve seen Malory misspelled in a professional publication.

A Ration Book Childhood – Jean Fullerton

This is set during WW2 and is the third book in a series following the Brogan family.

The ack-ack gun on the Isle of Dogs sent the ground trembling as they let off another round skyward. Mattie sighed and rolled onto her side. In the mute glow of Alicia’s Noddy night-light she gazed through the wire lattice at the twelve-by twelve basement space that was the McCarthy’s nightly shelter.

This reference is anachronistic, however, as Noddy first appeared in 1949, and the events of this book take place in 1941.

The Accidental Investigator – Amber Eve

This book is chock-full of references. I often see Noddy  the Famous Five and the Enchanted Wood mentioned but this time there’s the Five Find-Outers too. It’s not much of a surprise, the author has a personal blog and has previously written about her love for Blyton.

This is her third book set in the Scottish village of Heather Bay, and sees Scarlett, a journalist, trying to track down an influencer that she’s convinced is not only in the local area but is also in trouble.

First she likens Dylan, the village’s only policeman to Mr Goon.

another awkward encounter with Heather Bay’s answer to Mr. Goon, the unfriendly policeman from Enid Blyton’s Five Find-Outers series

…

“He’s like a modern-day Mr. Goon.” I’m about to explain to the perplexed Katie that Mr. Goon was the bungling policeman from one of my favourite children’s books when that blasted doorbell starts clamouring for attention yet again.

Scarlet, I think rather channels the author at times:

I wanted to be a detective, like Nancy Drew, or Frederick “Fatty” Trotteville of The Five Find-Outers. I wanted to solve mysteries, and have adventures, and eat lots of barley sugar, which I would always just happen to have in my pocket, along with a torch and a box of matches.

A few of the references are more vague, but clearly Blyton-inspired:

No local scandals to uncover. No mysterious lights shining from the windows of a supposedly abandoned house. Not even a smuggler or anything. I mean, what do you have to do to find a smuggler in this town, I ask you?

…

I’m out here in the dark. Alone. Without so much as a faithful animal companion or a potted meat sandwich to keep me company, let alone a convenient farmhouse with a cheerful farmer’s wife who insists on putting me up for the night, before sending me on my way in the morning after a lavish breakfast.

…

Looks like the adventure books I used to love so much were lying to me the whole time. Trust me to have to risk life and limb on the side of a mountain to find that out.

Scarlet lamenting how life is not like Blyton’s books becomes a common theme:

Ada and her Instagram account, which, okay, might not be anything like as interesting as that time the Famous Five stumbled across a ghost train on the moors (It turned out to be smugglers, naturally .It always turned out to be smugglers for the Five.).

…

I think the main thing I’ve learned from this little impromptu adventure is that adventuring is only fun in books, when you have a mug of steaming coffee in front of you — or if you’re in the Famous Five, say ,and the smugglers are mostly harmless.

…

I know the Famous Five always took things like ginger beer and bags of barley sugar with them when they went camping, but my fridge contains only Prosecco and cheese, while the cupboards are a testament to my take-away habit .

And half-a-dozen other miscellaneous references:

Tonight I toss and turn for half the night, before drifting into a restless dream in which PC Goon from the Five Find-Outers is helping me.

…

When I was talking to Ruby, I felt like Nancy Drew, or one of the Famous Five, teetering on the edge of some thrilling mystery.

…

I give him my best George-from-the-Famous-Five scowl.

…

Sitting by the loch, looking out to the little island in the middle — the one with the ruined castle that I always think looks like Kirrin Castle in The Famous Five.

…

“We could steal a boat,” I suggest hopefully. “That’s what The Five would do.”

“The Five would end up having to get arrested by the coastguard,” he says, grinning at me.

…

And you better believe I’m not coming this far, just to be left behind at the last minute, like George and Anne in the Famous Five, left to make supper while the boys went out to investigate the light in the old tower at midnight.

I really enjoyed this book on its own merits, all the Blyton references just made it extra fun.

A Change of Heart for the Cornish Midwife – Jo Bartlett

Gwen, one of the midwives is organising her older cousin’s funeral, and is discussing the difficulties in writing the eulogy as her cousin lived such a quiet life.

She spent all her spare time reading the same sort of books we read when we were kids and, after she retired, she just doubled down on that. I think she must have read all the Enid Blytons about a hundred times each.

She also makes a few more “mature” comments!

I like to think that maybe she read the odd racy story in between the Enid Blytons and got her kicks like that.

…

It can’t all have been lashings of ginger beer, can it? I’m sure she must have discovered Fifty Shades of Grey at some point and read about some lashings of an entirely different sort.

There’s that famous but (as far as the books go) non-existent phrase about lashings of ginger beer again. Blyton did use lashings, but never for ginger beer.

Lashings of tomatoes √

Lashings of ginger beer X

The Bookshop of Second Chances – Jackie Fraser

Another bookshop-themed book.

Thea visits a private Scottish beach and thinks to herself that:

It’s pretty much perfect, like something from the Famous Five.

Later, in the titular shop:

Next there’s an older couple buying some Noddy books in hardback.

Why Mummy Drinks at Christmas – Gill Sims

Gill Sims must be a Blyton fan as this isn’t the first time that she has mentioned the Famous Five in this series. Ellen, the Mummy of the story, regularly laments how her children do not behave in the way that the Famous Five did.

Summers were one thing, despite Famous Five efforts at japes and frolics. Why would my children never frolic satisfactorily in a seasonally appropriate way.

…

“This is an adventure,” I said. “Think of it like camping.”

“I hate camping,” wailed Jane.

In fairness to her, I also loathe camping. “Well not camping then, definitely an adventure, poppet. Like the Famous Five.”

“Are there going to be smugglers?” whimpered Jane.

“No, of course not. All right, not the Famous Five. Err, like, the Railway Children.”

And that’s all I have, for now. But with another hundred or so books still to read this year I’m sure I’ll find more!