126 years of Blyton

Posted on August 11, 2023 by Fiona

Enid Blyton was born 126 years ago today! In honour of that I thought I would make a list of 126 great moments from her books.

These are in no particular order, in fact I looked up a way to randomize them on my spreadsheet and then did just that (except I moved the ash tree a couple of places so it was at the end!). There are probably hundreds of other great moments but these are just the ones that came to mind to me!

  1. Mysterious twang-dongs are heard in Moon Castle
  2. George and the Arnold children find a secret passage up the chimney
  3. Jo sets Beauty the python on the men in the secret passage
  4. Fatty takes up running to avoid Eunice
  5. The Mannering-Trents sneak up the secret passage and confuse Jo-Jo
  6. The fourth formers play the pinging bubble trick

  1. Jack goes to the hotel to tell Mr and Mrs Arnold about their children
  2. Whenever Miranda has a go at riding Loony
  3. Philip turns the pack of dogs back on Mieir and Erlick
  4. George rescues Julian, Dick and Jock after being banned from going adventuring
  5. Fatty escapes a locked room with a bit of newspaper under the door
  6. George signs her name as Georgina to let the others know that something is up
  7. Dinah and Lucy-Ann do their waterfall dance to distract the men
  8. Darrell slaps Gwen in the pool
  9. The peddlar-man creeping around the circus in the night turns out to be Bill with a false moustache

  1. June rescues Amanda from the sea
  2. The boys ring the bell at Demon’s Rocks
  3. Pip plays a big-footed trick and solves the mystery
  4. Uncle Quentin can’t get Berta, er Leslie, er Jane’s name right
  5. George’s wreck is thrown up by the storm
  6. Every time Irene loses or forgets her health certificate
  7. Philip, Dinah and Lucy-Ann pretend to be ill in order to escape from the cave
  8. Fatty and Goon disguise themselves as waxworks
  9. The boys see the Spook Train coming in and out of its tunnel in the dead of night
  10. Miss Grayling’s speech to the new girls
  11. Loony meets Loopy
  12. Kiki gets under Gus’s bed to torment him
  13. Margery rescues Erica from the sick bay when it catches fire

  1. Snubby wears the bear-skin rug to pretend to be a wild bear
  2. Barney and Mirands escape the whirlpool
  3. Miss Grayling gives her welcome speech and references Darrell’s success at the school
  4. Snubby makes up the green hand gang to a stranger who turns out to be Uncle Robert
  5. Anne takes Mr Curton to task over his bad deeds
  6. The heavy rains swell the underground river and make escaping from the robber’s forest difficult
  7. Goon stuffs the doll’s clothes down Fatty’s back
  8. Fatty disguises himself as an old tramp, almost identical to the real old tramp
  9. The second-formers play their magnet trick
  10. Irene nearly takes Belinda’s eye out with her hairbrush

  1. Amelia Jane runs wild with the scissors and cuts up lots of things in the nursery
  2. Philip’s rat goes up Mr Roy’s trouser leg
  3. Mr Lorenzo bumps into the fake Mr Lorenzo
  4. Jimmy, Lotta and Lucky ride off to find Sammy the missing chimpanzee
  5. Gussy is disguised as a girl to avoid detection
  6. Julian stands up to Mr Perton (and is kind to Aggie)
  7. Jimmy, Lotta and Lucky have to rescue the bears in the night
  8. Amelia Jane accidentally covers herself in treacle and feathers
  9. Mr Goon get a short shrift as he goes around asking questions about shoe sizes
  10. Snubby takes an earlier train and arrives at the house while Roger and Diana are at the station
  11. The third formers play the sneezing pellet trick
  12. The children’s suitcases fall from the tree and knock out Pepi

  1. Darrell takes the chalk trick too far with her OY
  2. Fatty pretends to be an old woman visiting himself in bed
  3. The Five make up sounds they might have heard to Mr Lenoir
  4. Morgan shouts for his seven dogs
  5. Anne throws water over Wilfrid in one of her tiger moments
  6. Goon attempts various disguises but the Find-Outers aren’t fooled
  7. Kiki gets on Aunt Polly’s good side, inadvertently, by saying Poor Polly
  8. Jack teaches the others how to build a willow house
  9. Julian and Dick dress up as Clopper and get stuck

  1. Amelia Jane brings her snow-baby into the warm nursery for a nap
  2. Barney’s long-lost father turns up
  3. The Saucepan Man brings the wrong presents due to him mishearing the requests
  4. Bill and the children use seabirds as a disguise
  5. Mam’zelle Dupont asks Amanda how many pebbles she weighs
  6. Belinda draws her unflattering sketches of the mam’zelle’s fight
  7. Fatty develops a skill in ventriloquism
  8. Whenever Fatty dresses as a red-headed boy
  9. Jimmy rescues Jemima the monkey from the tigers’ cage
  10. June’s swelling trick goes wrong
  11. Edgar falls through the roof-hole to the Kirrin island cave

  1. Elizabeth learns that changing your mind is not cowardly
  2. The second-formers play the invisible chalk trick
  3. Janet plays an inkblot trick on Mam’zelle
  4. Blind Beowald shows the way to the robbers’ secret entrance
  5. Susan and Peter move into their hollow tree house
  6. The boys shoo off Mr Luffy by mistake
  7. Suzanne pretends not to understand the ‘piggy-hoo-lear’ English language as well as she does
  8. Mam’zelle’s fake teeth fall out onto the grass
  9. The Find-Outers play woo-hoo-collywobbles
  10. The Arnold children secretly send messages to Prince Paul from their window

  1. Snubby throws Miss Pepper’s hairbrush back through her window and hits her with it
  2. Mr Arnold throws a knife into the sun just before an eclipse
  3. Gussy thinking that any money you keep in your pocket is therefore pocket money
  4. George and Timmy take Junior his breakfast
  5. Bill and his men walk off their pedestals in the knights’ armour
  6. Jack’s cow swims behind the boat
  7. Amelia Jane makes a plasticine snake and plasticine furniture to trick the toys
  8. Philip gets the escaped bears back into their cage
  9. Dick is passed the mysterious note in the night

dick five on a hike together

  1. George sneaks down the rope ladder and walks the walls of Castaway Hill
  2. The Land of Dreams comes to the top of the Faraway Tree
  3. Mam’zelle “catches” all the burglars in St Clare’s
  4. Daphne saves Mary-Lou
  5. Tom and Andy use an annoying gramophone record to trick the men
  6. The Five line up Tall Chimney, Tock Hill etc to find the Saucy Jane
  7. Tom the blacksmith tells the tale of the Bartles
  8. Bobby makes Mam’zelles plate jiggle about
  9. Bobby changes the clock so they get out of class early
  10. Alicia pretends to be deaf and mishears Mam’zelle
  11. Roger, Diana and Snubby meet Naomi Barlow aka Red Riding Hood

ring o bells mystery

  1. Miss Peters saves Thunder (and Mavis)
  2. Sooty pretends to have bitten Block
  3. The acrobatic high-wire rescue of the children from Borken Castle
  4. Mrs Penruthlan boxes Julian’s ears
  5. Julian throws the box from the wreck out of the upstairs window
  6. Amelia Jane lights a fire in her stolen snow house
  7. Eizabeth has a sign put on her back declaring she is the Bold, Bad Girl
  8. Whenever Loony starts his brush and rug stealing antics
  9. Daisy moos in the caves and scares the men
  10. The Arnold children are hit by strange pins and needles
  11. Jeremiah Boogle tells the tale of the three wreckers
  12. Jo swaps places with George to the kidnappers

  1. Antoinette rings the fire-bell to disrupt the meeting
  2. Anne thinks she has been sitting on a volcano
  3. PC Pippin pulls the vicar’s brother’s hair, mistaking it for a wig
  4. The Mannering-Trents realise that the plane’s seats are the wrong colour
  5. Mary-Lou bravely goes searching at night for clues to prove Darrell is innocent
  6. Old Grandad tells the tale of Ring o’ Bells
  7. Antoinette mixes up Angela’s anchovy paste and shoe polish
  8. Jo steals Dick’s bike having promised not to take Julian’s
  9. Diana asks ‘Why is father so mouldy?’
  10. The Mannering-Trents hold Horace Tipperlong hostage

  1. Julian stands up to the Sticks
  2. Kiki “falls” off the castle top
  3. Don’t forget Bill Smugs
  4. The ash tree falls on Kirrin Cottage

 

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July 2023 round up

Posted on August 9, 2023 by Fiona

July has been fairly miserable weather-wise, we’ve hardly had any days without rain! But we are the intrepid-ish kind, so armed with waterproofs and umbrellas we get out and about anyway.

What I have read

Not as much as I hoped during my holiday (the hot tub was too tempting), but not bad the rest of the month. I was at 80/100 books read by the end of July so it’s looking good for my reading challenge.

What I have read:

  • Keeper of Enchanted Rooms (Whimbrel House #1) – Charlie N Holmberg
  • Mrs Porter Calling (Emmy Lake #3) – A J Pearce (I hope there are more of these to come!)
  • Mary Anne and the Haunted Bookshop (Baby Sitters Club Mystery #34) – Ann M Martin
  • The Mystery of the King’s Ransom (Adventure Island #11) – Helen Moss (I found this on the very eclectic bookshelves of our holiday house)
  • Something New at the Borrow a Bookshop (Borrow a Bookshop #3) – Kiley Dunbar
  • Another Time, Another Place (Chronicles of St Mary’s #12) – Jodi Taylor
  • The Queen’s Nose – Dick King-Smith
  • Heir of Uncertain Magic (Whimbrel House #2) – Charlie N Holmberg
  • Winters Gifts (Rivers of London #9.5) – Ben Aaronovitch
  • Marking Time (Cazalet Chronicles #2) – Elizabeth Jane Howard
  • The Sheep-Pig – Dick King-Smith

And I’m still working on:

  • The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels (Dangerous Damsels #1) – India Holton
  • The Sword in the Stone (Once and Future King #1) – T H White (the book that the Disney movie is based on.)

What I have watched

  • We finished Lego Masters US and began the new New Zealand series.
  • Only Connect began its 19th series and so far  this year they have really stepped up the difficulty in the early rounds!
  • Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which was weird but good fun
  • Instead of a film on Tuesday nights my sister and I have been watching Is it Cake Too? which is the second series of Is It Cake?
  • On holiday we found a DVD of Wallace and Grommit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit, and I caught a bit of Face/Off when the others watched it. I also watched one episode of The Great British Sewing Bee (mum’s choice) and an episode of Love Island (Kirsty’s choice).

What I have done

  • We had a week in a house just outside Kinloss. We had a day at the beach and a day in Inverness where I got to go to Leakey’s (one book bought) and browse some charity shops (six… or maybe seven books). We also visited Logie Steading which had a lovely cafe and bookshop (two more books) as well as a riverside walk, Morayvia an RAF museum complete with a load of old helicopters and aeroplanes you can sit in, and Brodie Castle. We also visited the ruins of Duffus Castle where we watched a couple of Typhoons practicing their take offs and landings at RAF Lossiemouth, and the ruins of Kinloss Abbey.
  • We visited several different libraries as part of the summer reading challenge. There are 14 in total and even I haven’t been in half of them before.
  • I printed off some cool book-shaped things for an event – a bookmark holder and a business card holder.
  • We helped my sister do a lot of painting in her new flat – thankfully all white so far so it didn’t matter quite so much if it got on the skirtings or ceilings.
  • We had another visit to the transport museum for emergency vehicles day.

More photos than usual this month as I actually used my proper camera for once!

 

What I bought

Nothing Blyton!

In Leakey’s I got a Nancy Drew paperback which I had never read before, and in the charity shops I picked up a bunch of Angel novels. They had what looked like every single Buffy and Angel novel, and for a moment it felt like looking at my own collection. I didn’t buy every Angel novel I don’t have, though, as I thought 12 was a bit much at one time.

At Logie Steading I got a couple of vintage Collin’s Seagull Library titles as I love the spines on them.

Pam, Pot and Kettle is by Marie Muir (I have a couple of her Torridons books but I haven’t read them yet) and The Key of Rose Cottage is by Margaret Baker.

What did your July look like?

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Monday #539

Posted on August 7, 2023 by Fiona

Brodie turned six at the weekend (where does the time go??) and we have been reading Five on a Treasure Island for the past few bedtimes. He is currently convinced that the Five will find the gold on the wreck (it just washed up at the end of our last chapter) and become rich. I realised the other day that Blyton was born 120 years (minus 5 days) before Brodie. And yet her books are still just as appealing to him as they were to me in the 90s, my mum in the 60s and all the children who have read them from when they were first published and all the way in between.

July round up

and

126 years of Blyton

Five on a Treasure Island has been book of the week before (back in 2018) but as I have made up no rules for this arbitrary honour, there’s nothing to say I can’t choose it again.

Brodie wasn’t entirely convinced when I first picked this one out, having finished The Sheep-Pig last week, mostly as there aren’t many pictures. But he has been hanging on every word of the first six chapters. We have read some Blyton stuff together before, mostly Noddy and of course Holiday Stories, but I’m loving sharing this with him the most.

 

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Silver and Gold

Posted on August 5, 2023 by Fiona

I treated myself to a new book the other week – Silver and Gold which is a collection of 30 poems.

First published in 1925 it was then released again in 1927 in a new edition. I have a slightly later copy of the second edition – it’s undated but it has the second edition illustrator and lacks the silver to the text on the boards. Still, it’s a fairly uncommon title and it’s definitely uncommon to see it going for only £20. It does have a few loose pages and it’s missing the free endpapers plus a few of the colour plates but the text is all there which is the important thing.

A confession

I have to begin by saying that poetry isn’t really my thing. Or more accurately, grown-up poetry isn’t my thing. Michael Rosen wrote some fantastic stuff – my family still quote various lines from Don’t Put Mustard in the Custard which is tragically out of print now – but I’d never pick up a grown-up poetry book for fun. The only one I own is Selected Poems by Sylvia Plath, and I actually don’t know why I have that other than remembering two of the poems in it from high school. Daddy and Morning Song, if you care to know. I’m not sure if I even like these two poems, or they are just familiar to me, having dissected them in detail over several lessons.

The only other poem I can recall from high school is Mr Bleaney by Philip Larkin, which is utterly dreary – though maybe that was the point?

All that is a roundabout way of saying that poetry is not my favourite Blyton genre, but I still can’t resist when something like this shows up.

Silver and Gold

The title of the book is also the title of the first poem, which is about an 8 year old who is not jealous of any of their friends’ money as they have

such lots of silver, and such lots of shining gold

By which they mean golden buttercups and silver dew, which they find down Cuckoo Lane.

The voice of a child

All but one of the poems in the book are in the first person, which Blyton rarely used in fiction, but more often did in poetry. It could be the same child speaking in every poem, as the language used is very similar – including the use of p’raps in at least half a dozen different poems. References to being 8 are also in more than one poem, so it could very well be the same child.

I think Blyton captures the child, or children’s, voice so well. Many of the poems draw on common themes from childhood, hunger, getting stuck up a tree (I’ve no idea how many times Brodie has climbed up something then shouted “Um, how am I going to get down??”), flights of fancy about becoming a sweet shop owner, joining the circus, living in a caravan etc, or communing with fairy folk, and so on.

Many people say that Blyton never really matured as an adult, or that she was stuck at the emotional maturity level of her 12 year old self (frozen by her father leaving) and some of these poems could make you half-believe that.

In Things I Won’t Forget the child is saying how they won’t ever forget the things that make up their childhood – both the good and the bad – and become one of those grown-ups that can’t remember what it was like to be a child.

When I’m grown up I’ll know what children like to do
I’ll know the things they’re frightened of, I’ll know the things they hate  –
And oh! I hope they’ll love me, though they’ll know I’m long past eight.

I don’t know if Blyton ever thought something to that effect when she was eight, but she definitely did grow up to remember what children liked and were afraid of. She really understood children as a writer. I have vaguely similar thoughts at work sometimes – I don’t want to become someone who’s worked there for so long they’ve forgotten what it was like to be new and enthusiastic. I don’t know how well it works, though, best laid plans and all that.

Like Blyton but not like Blyton

I can’t quite put my finger on it but this book is very Blyton while also being a bit different.

Blyton’s first full-length novel is generally considered to be The Secret Island from 1938, while Adventures of the Wishing Chair came out in late 1937 (having been serlialised in Sunny Stories in early 1937) but that one’s more regarded as a novelette. Either way these are both more than ten years later than Silver and Gold.

I would definitely say that Blyton developed her writing style in those intervening years – but then it’s quite possible that writing and publishing changed somewhat too, and she just followed along.

There are words and phrases in the book – like p’raps, tho’, and me and the wind – that I don’t think she used much, if at all, later on.

One poem – To My Enemy – almost doesn’t sound like her at all.

I’d like to be a spider,
A nasty, crawly spider,
With just about a hundred legs
And twenty eyes.
And I’d scriggle down your neck,
A nasty, leggy speck,
And start a gobble-gobbling you,
Like spiders gobble flies.

It’s great but if you’d shown me that without context I don’t think I’d have guessed Blyton in a million years!

Yet some of the other stuff – like the weaving in of fairy folk and the place names are quintessential Blyton.

Talking of place names I kept a list of the ones she used as there’s a definite theme –

Cuckoo Lane (twice)
Cuckoo Wood (twice)
Primrose Lane
Buttercup Lane
Blackberry Lane

The illustrations

The first edition had illustrations by Lewis Baumer, while my reprint is illustrated by Ethel Everett.

Everett’s illustrations are lovely – very 1920s, and there are a lot of them. I feel like this must have been a reasonably expensive book, or perhaps an unnecessarily expensive one! I mean it is lovely, but some poems have been spread out a verse per page with illustrations in between. It’s very luxurious, and it makes for a lovely reading experience. Particularly one poem which introduces a new character in each verse, which is then accompanied by an illustration of the character. It doesn’t really need as many as 128 pages for 30 poems, though, so I wonder if this was a deliberate way of marketing it to a more wealthy class of readers.

There are also seven colour plates plus the frontis. These are slightly disappointing (at least the ones left in my copy are!) as I found the colours quite murky, and they don’t quite live up to the lively, movement-full line drawings.

All in all this is a really nice book, which despite my lack-of-love for poetry was an enjoyable read and I’m glad I bought it.

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Letters to Enid part 34: From volume 2 issue 22

Posted on August 2, 2023 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 2, issue 22.
October 27th – November 9th, 1954.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

 A letter from Jennifer Goleby, Eye, Suffolk.
Dear Miss Blyton,
I am sending you a lavender stick I made you during the Summer holidays, with my love. Enclosed is 8s. 6d. for your Blind Children which I made from selling lavender sticks.
With love from,
 Jennifer Goleby (Sunbeam).

(What a lovely idea, Jennifer, and how beautifully you made the sticks. Thank you so much for sending me one.)

A letter from Ian Ban Lee, Malaya.
Dear Miss Blyton,
I am going to tell you about a friend of mine who is very fond of birds and animals. Don’t you think he should join the Busy Bees? In his house he keeps two dogs, two magpies, one cuckoo and two monkeys. He either bought them from cruel owners or picked them up on the roadside. He treats his pets so well that his nephews envy them.
I hope I have not bothered you as you are very busy.
Yours sincerely,
Ian Ban Lee.

(You have not bothered me at all, Ian. How kind your friend must be.)

A letter from Jennifer Aylward, Pinner.
Dear Enid Blyton,
We have a dear little robin who comes every morning and taps on the window. He’s very tame, and we can almost feed him by hand.
Love from,
Jennifer Aylward.

(We have a robin like yours too, Jennifer. It’s lovely to tame a wild bird, isn’t it?)

A letter from Rosalind Mallock, Shenfield.
Dear Enid Blyton,
Last night my tooth came out, so I put it under my pillow for the fairies to change for 6d. But when I looked for the sixpence all I found was a sleepy wasp under my  pillow – so Mummy says a BAD fairy must have put it there!
Love from,
Rosalind Mallock.

(That was bad luck, Rosalind. I hope somebody exchanged the wasp for you !)

Four letters this week, perhaps to make up for there only being two last week. And one all the way from Malaya – which then was British Malaya, and then became part of Malaysia after gaining independence.

A wee bit of bribery from Jennifer Goleby, there, sending Blyton a gift? Maybe lots of children did that, and it just didn’t normally get mentioned.

Although I would hate to find a wasp under my pillow I love Rosalind’s letter, and the fact she just had to share her story with her favourite author. I’m glad it was a sleepy wasp and not an alert and angry one otherwise it wouldn’t have been such a funny story.

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Monday #538

Posted on July 31, 2023 by Fiona

July is almost over already, and unfortunately it has been a bit of a wash-out weather-wise. Good for the river levels, not so good for getting out and doing things.

We did some sheltering from rain in libraries this week – we’ve now ticked off 8 so we are over half-way! I’m on annual leave this week so hopefully we will get at least a few rain-free days so we can do some day trips.

Letters to Enid 34

and

Silver and Gold

The cast for the new Famous Five adaptation has been announced. I can’t say that I know any of the actors – but knowing actors is not really my forte!

The news was accompanied by this photo, of the Five. I love Dick’s pullover – it definitely rivals anything Paul Child got to wear. Otherwise I am not entirely convinced by the cast here, but it’s very hard to make any sort of judgement from a single snapshot. Dick looks rather young, and would not have been away at the back should anything mysterious be going on, for a start. Would Julian have been in trousers? I imagine he might have – being well into his teens as the series progressed, but I don’t remember that being mentioned. I do rather like the braces, though! Similarly George always tried to dress as a boy, in shorts, shirts and jerseys. She never wore trousers that I know of, and would not have worn a girly peach blouse, either.

Beyond that there are questions about who the Wentworths are (there are a Mr and Mrs in the cast list) and the small matter of the washed up, or thrown over-board diver, who is definitely not in the books. Someone who has tried to recover the lost ingots, or clues to them, from George’s wreck? We’ll have to watch and find out, I guess?

 

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Enid Blyton’s Holiday Stories then and now, part 12

Posted on July 30, 2023 by Fiona

We are at the final part! Despite only being part 12 it feels as if this taken forever. Then again I did start it at the end of March, so it has taken four months which is quite a long time. I plan to do a similar look at The Christmas Book / Enid Blyton’s Christmas Stories so if I want to be able to post that around Christmas I’d probably better start looking at it now…

Previous parts look at story 1, stories 2 and 3, stories 4 and 5, stories 6 and 7, stories 8 to 10,  stories 11 to 13, stories 14 to 16, stories 17 to 18, stories 19 to 20, stories 21 to 22, and stories 24 to 25.

enid-blytons-holiday-stories

The Three Sailors

First published in Sunny Stories #82 in 1938 this was first reprinted in The Gay Story Book in 1946. After that it has appeared in six other story collections from 1969 thr9ough to 2022. The 1969 print is actually At Seaside Cottage which contains the story of the same name – the first one in this Holiday Stories collection – as well as a few other stories.

A story with the same title appears as a John and Mary story in 1967. At first glance this appears to be a different story as the children do not have the same names but the plot summary describes this story exactly.

A brief review

Peter, Rosemary and Richard are staying by the sea with their parents and Granny. As Granny doesn’t like eating on the sand Daddy has brought a table down for meals. The children are desperate to go out in a boat but the sea is too rough. In the end they use the upside down table as a pretend boat. But when the grown-ups leave them all afternoon to play (have they never heard of water safety??) they fall asleep on the table and the tide takes them out to sea. They wake in a panic as they are far from shore, but thankfully Daddy has just arrived bringing the tea things.

You might expect a dramatic rescue ensues, but Daddy just laughs… it turns out the water is not at all deep and they can simply walk back to shore. Just as well, as Daddy considers keeping his white trousers dry is more important to him than helping his children!

I do like this story, and the ending is funny but it also gives me a moment of thinking how badly it could have gone had the table been carried out further. But then again I also wonder if the tide could take a table out like that, with three children on it, without the waves breaking over the sides. How deep would the water have to get before it could lift all that weight?

At the very least it is a summer holiday story that fits the theme of the book!

The updates

There are so many you can practically read whole paragraphs of this story here.

First up Tom, Joan and Eric have become Peter, Rosemary and Richard. (Then you’ve got John, Mary and their friend Tony in the 1967 tale… not confusing at all!) The name updates continue to baffle me. The new names are barely any more modern or common than the original ones!

The other modernisation is to remove in a trice again (which is a shame as I like that phrase, it’s so Blyton!) So in a trice the table was turned upside down is then The table was quickly turned upside down.

The rest of the text changes are of the strange and pointless kind.

Granny didn’t like sitting on the sand to have tea becomes Granny didn’t like sitting on the sand. Well, maybe Granny doesn’t mind sitting on the sand unless she’s eating?

Then So Daddy had brought down a wooden table from the house for her becomes so Daddy had brought down a chair and a wooden table from the house for her. I can see their point – they’re thinking how can she sit at a table without a chair but it’s not unreasonable to think she might have a chair already?

Mother had a tablecloth is changed to Mummy had a table cloth. She is referred to as Mummy earlier so they are trying to keep it consistent, I suppose, but it’s still clear that mummy and mother are the same person!

This makes the next change even more baffling as the children ran to ask their Daddy to get a boat becomes the children ran to ask their father to get a boat. So now Daddy, who is referred to as Daddy in all other instances, is this once, father.

When Daddy says “No, my dears, the sea is still too rough this becomes just no, the sea is still too rough. Is Daddy not allowed to use terms of endearment?

After arguing about going on the boat Rosemary sulks and says Oh I do want to go, but this line is removed.

When talking about the table Granny suggests they pretend it is a boat for some reason this becomes pretend it’s a boat.

After they wake on their table-boat Eric/Richard’s upset is diminished. Originally it read “Oh what shall we do,” wept Eric. “I’m afraid – I’m afraid.” Now it reads “Oh what shall we do,” cried Richard. “I’m scared.” Doesn’t quite have the same impact, does it?

“Daddy, save us!” shouted Tom has then been changed to shouted Rosemary. I really can’t see why – it’s not a correction of a character replying to themselves, nor does Rosemary get forgotten about and need a line.

Grammar-wise a few hyphens get taken out but there were no italics to change anyway. Some dashes get changed to commas – a style thing, I presume.

And lastly Blyton’s commentary at the end to the reader has been removed. There are ones at the end of some other stories in this collection, and there is plenty of space on the page for it so I can’t see why it was removed.

Weren’t they funny? I would have loved to see them sailing away fast asleep on their upside-down table, wouldn’t you?

One thing was was left is the old-fashioned sentence structure here they could none of them swim well enough. This sort of thing has been changed in other stories so I was surprise this wasn’t None of them could swim well enough.

The illustrations

Marjorie Thorp provided illustrations for the Sunny Stories print, including the cover which shows the story.

The Gay Story Book was illustrated entirely by Eileen Soper, though sadly there is only one illustration in The Three Sailors. It is a lovely one, though.

The Magic Seaweed

First published in Sunny Stories for Little Folks 144 in 1932 this story has had five further printings. It has appeared in Macmillan Reader #5 in 1944, then in The Little White Duck and Other Stories in 1946 (this is the copy I have).

A brief review

This story shares a few similarities with the previous one, which makes me think it might have been better off if the two stories were not back to back.

Jill is on the beach building a sandcastle when she shrinks down to miniature size (commons sense would have told her not to eat little sweet-like things that come out of seaweed) and goes exploring. Once inside her sandcastle – and I mean who has never longed to explore a little world like that? – she meets a crab who warns her the tide is coming in. And in it comes, tearing away chunks of the castle until Jill nearly swept away herself. But then she wakes up on the beach, the tide just lapping at her feet, and her castle still standing.

The updates

Jill at least is still Jill but Nurse who has accompanied her to the beach is now her mother. While Nurse sat and did her knitting, her mother is sitting reading.

While Nurse could have been changed to Mother/ her mother perfectly easily, for some reason other bits of wording around them have been changed too.

So she shouted at the top of her voice to Nurse becomes so she shouted to her mother at the top of her voice, and while Nurse had moved far up the beach it’s her mother had moved further up the beach.

The one use of queer is in queer-shaped and that becomes oddly-shaped.

The editors must think that children are pretty stupid. Originally when Jill goes inside the sand castle it reads she climbed up the little sandy steps she had made in the side of the castle and the next line says something about her walking down one of the hallways inside. For some reason the words and went inside have been added to the sentence above. As if we couldn’t figure that She went up the stairs then walked down the hallway meant she had entered the castle!

One thing that wasn’t changed is the very outdated term giantess. 

The illustrations

For the Sunny Stories printing the illustrator was Phyllis Chase, while the Macmillan Reader and The Little White Duck both had Eileen Soper illustrations (the same ones, I assume).

 

And that’s it, Holiday Stories finally done! Now I just need to choose what to do next…

 

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Worst of Blyton at the library

Posted on July 27, 2023 by Fiona

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…

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Monday #537

Posted on July 24, 2023 by Fiona

It’s Monday night, it’s 11 o’clock, this is Top of the Pops the post I should have written last night and posted this morning.

School holidays are still in full swing, we have been visiting the libraries to collect stamps as part of the summer reading challenge. We did three on Tuesday last week, and Brodie did another with my mum on the Thursday. Tomorrow we are going to try to get three more, so we will be on and off the busses through the afternoon (thankfully Brodie goes free as a child!). That will take us to 8, then there’ll be (just!) 6 to go.

Worst of Blyton at the library

and

Enid Blyton’s Holiday Stories then and now, part 12

Seeing as my ‘Worst’ post above will be a pretty negative one, and I am bound to complain a lot about the changes to the Holiday Stories as well let’s revisit a positive post for a change!

I wrote this in 2016 and I don’t think my opinions have changed a bit since then!

My three Favourite Blyton adults

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Letters to Enid part 33: From volume 2 issue 21

Posted on July 20, 2023 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 2, issue 21.
October 13th-26th, 1954.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

 A letter from Helen Chamberlain, Harborne.
Dear Miss Blyton,
We hope you will like this booklet we have written for you all about our Garden Fete. Lots of people have asked us to have another one next summer, they enjoyed it so much! We think God must have known we were helping others because we had such a beautiful sunny day.
Love from your Sunbeam
Helen Chamberlain

(I wish all our readers could see your beautiful book, Helen; telling the exciting story of the Fete – every page with a picture too! Well done – and thank you very much.)

A letter from Isobel, Susan, Christine and Frances, Kingsbury, London.
Dear Enid Blyton,
We have a Famous Five Club. Our meetings are held in a garage. We put up deck-chairs for walls, because we only Have part of the garage To sit on we have old cushions. We have a library with all our books we could find. Susan, (who is George in our club) has a cat that takes the place of Timmy. We have bought him a badge. (His real name is Nicky.)
Yours sincerely,
The Five

(I am pleased to hear of your F.F. club – and especially to know that Nicky doesn’t mind acting as Timmy.)

Only two letters this week, though I’ve forgotten what the top of the page was taken up with.

I, too, wish that we could have seen the Fete booklet (or at least a page of it) as it must have been good to have been picked for the winning letter.

I love the Famous Five club in the garage, with a Timmy-cat. I do wonder about sitting on old cushions when there are deckchairs there – but these kids probably don’t have dodgy knees. They are obviously quite happy on the floor and would rather have the sense of privacy offered by the chairs than a place to sit!

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Enid Blyton’s Holiday Stories then and now, part 11

Posted on July 18, 2023 by Fiona

I photographed the pages of the remaining stories with the honest goal of doing some blogging prep while I was away – there was a desk upstairs in the mezzanine “library” but I was too busy going in the hot tub most evenings! (As it turns out the chair at the desk was far too low to really use it for working at – but the view was nice.) But I’m back now and it’s time to knuckle down and get this series finished.

Previous parts look at story 1, stories 2 and 3, stories 4 and 5, stories 6 and 7, stories 8 to 10,  stories 11 to 13, stories 14 to 16, stories 17 to 18, stories 19 to 20 and stories 21 and 22.

enid-blytons-holiday-stories

Staying With Auntie Sue

Originally titled The Spoilt Little Girl this story’s first appearance was in Sunny Stories #399 in 1947. Its name was changed for its first reprint in the Eleventh Holiday Book, and remained the same for its four subsequent reprints between 1970 and 2015.

A brief review

Katie’s not a very nice girl but honestly I feel very sorry for her. A lot of Blyton’s stories have spoilt, unpleasant children and we generally dislike them as they misbehave and so on, but somehow this one feels a little different. Katie’s parents have spoiled her – they admit that themselves at the beginning – and then call her unpleasant and tell her they’re sending her off to Auntie Sue as they need a break from her in the holidays.

Now she absolutely does need taking in hand but I think it’s pretty bad of them to not shoulder the responsibility of teaching her better behaviour. Instead they call her names, reject her, and send her away.

It’s just like the Naughtiest Girl then, where that rejection causes the girls to act out even worse than before. Elizabeth is wanting to be sent home, of course, while Katie is acting out her hurt.

I also feel sorry for Auntie Sue getting sent a spoilt and rejected child.

The story is a fairly classic be careful what you wish for tale – with Katie deciding to do as she pleases and her Aunt not stopping her. But staying up late (until TEN O’CLOCK, Blyton highlights as a terribly shocking time) and sleeping in means missing breakfast, and not wearing her overall means ruining her dresses and not going to a party. So Katie learns some harsh lessons.

Auntie Sue rides it all out impressively, however, and never rises to Katie’s tantrums. She has quite a lot of wise words to say on the subject of how you treat others, putting me in mind of Aunt Grace from House-at-the-Corner.

It isn’t very nice, is it, Katie, when we do what we like, and don’t bother about one another? But you have chosen that way of behaving, and I will choose it too.

This is probably one of the best stories in the collection but it has only the most tangential connection to the summer holiday theme of the book. Yes, it is the holidays, but given that Katie goes out without a coat, hat, or scarf (hats and scarves not being commonly needed in the summer) and gets soaked in a rain storm then catches a cold, I’d be inclined to think this wasn’t the height of summer at all.

The updates

Not a lot has been changed – in fact for a while I was wondering if they had forgotten about this one.

But frock has been changed to dress, and lighted the gas to lit the gas.

A short sentence has been removed – But not unless, which had previously followed this one: Now, if you are going to be sensible and do what you are told, for once , then I shall be sensible and kind, too. 

Italics-wise I stopped counting as there were dozens of uses and all were left. In fact they have actually ADDED italics in this story. Katie says I shall DO as I like! With the capitalisation of DO giving all the emphasis you think it’d need, but no, this copy has italicized the DO as well. It’s all very confusing and inconsistent – though perhaps I’m missing some obscure grammar rule about only words beginning with certain letters and appearing in odd-numbered lines being allowed italics?

(It has also made me wonder what ‘version’ of the story they have copied. In the back they list all the first printings of the stories but do they have original manuscripts, copies of the magazines, digitised copies of the stories, or are they using later reprints such as the 1950s books I’m using, or even later prints from the 60s and 70s? Given that the copyright holders didn’t have the original Famous Five dustjackets for when they wanted to reuse the artwork for the paperbacks a few years ago I find it hard to believe they have runs of the magazines, but perhaps they protected the written words more carefully than the jackets?)

A few hyphens are removed from things like tea-time, over-sleeping and to-morrow.

One thing that was left was also a little surprising – What she really wanted, of course, was a good slap , but Auntie Sue knew that Katie’s mother would never forgive her if she slapped her. Slaps, real and threatened are usually removed!

The illustrations

Jessie Land provided the illustrations for the magazine, while the Holiday Book has ones by Betty Ladler, and have a nice three colour overlay. It’s just a pity that there are no paint and plasticine stains on her blue dress as per the text.

A Puppy in Wonderland

Another one with a name change – this was originally called A Puppy in Fairyland and appeared in Sunny Stories For Little Folks #95 in 1930.

It has been reprinted a few times – with its original title three times between 1936 and 1966, then a further four times with the new name between 1986 and 2015. I’m not sure what changed in the 80s that Fairyland had to become Wonderland! I’m sure most people would associate wonderland with either Alice in Wonderland or perhaps something like Walking in a Winter Wonderland. It is still inhabited by fairyfolk and not wonderfolk at any rate. (Incidentally my spellchecker doesn’t like fairyfolk as one word, they way it appears in the reprint, but it does accept fairy-folk as per the original).

I didn’t have a copy of this story but a friend sent me a scan of News Chronicles Boys’ and Girls’ Story Book No 4 as I was in search of a story (which turned out to be the wrong version) but happily it contains this one! So thanks again to Pete.

A brief review

This is a longish story though I don’t feel as if an awful lot happens. Three children take their dog for a walk in the woods, but the dog chases a rabbit and disappears. The children discover that brownies have taken him because he has dug up an area they’d prepared for a party. They follow the brownies’ footprints, instantly find a secret trapdoor, go through it to find themselves in fairyland, get directions from the first person they see, walk straight into the castle and Chips is let free (the rabbit turns out to be a bad’un so he’s forgiven).

It’s not a bad story but it does feel as if it goes on a bit despite being very straightforward. There isn’t anything hugely inventive – or at least it feels that way having read so many of her other stories. The trapdoor leads to an underground river, with a boat to take them down it which has also been done (and more effectively) in both The Secret of Killimooin and The Mountain of Adventure – but both came much later. Perhaps they were both influenced by the idea she had for this story. One thing I did like was the use of spider’s web as rope to tie up the dog.

The updates

I feel like this was edited by someone entirely different from some of the previous stories. It is full of small changes!

First up Alan, Jim and Betty become Alan, James and Kate. Of course we all know how popular the name Alan is for boys nowadays? James is a classic, of course, and I’m sure there are plenty of Kates and Katherines particularly since Wills and Kate got married, but Jim and Betty aren’t much more old-fashioned than Alan. There was also a Katie in the previous story, so couldn’t they have been a little more inventive?

Every single use of italics is removed. Blyton was a bit heavy on them, perhaps, with 12 uses in 8 pages, but the story is not packed with them – and they all served a purpose in emphasising what was being said. I wonder if it was a conscious decision, seeing as some stories had their italics left alone, and others only lost some or most of them. Did someone perform some sort of formatting manoeuvre that deleted all the italics by mistake? (You’re probably wondering why I keep banging on about italics because it’s terribly boring, but it’s a) pointless changing of the text and b) the inconsistency of the pointless changes annoying me.)

because he would chew up slippers
it was hot
the Brownies didn’t know what to do
but we must catch him
oh, so it was your dog, was it?
oh dear, I am sorry
he really is naughty to do that
We must find Chips. Where can they have put him?
Then he is a good puppy, not a naughty one!
one night it ran away with the carriage
Chips nearly caught it
their mother had to believe them 

Some of the changes are then attempts to modernise the language.

Dear little chap becomes dear little pup, in a trice becomes in no time at all, the children’s gardener (who was getting cross about Chips digging in the garden) is now their Daddy.

Some others I’m less sure about.

No bunny to be seen is changed to no rabbit to be seen – are children today not supposed to know that bunnies are rabbits are the same creature?

It was got ready becomes It was made ready. You don’t see that usage as often these days I don’t think, but it’s not wrong. Similarly till becomes until – both have the same meaning and both are right. Till is more common in speech and until in formal writing – but the till in this story comes from speech anyway.

A puppy dog becomes a puppy – yes the dog party is technically superfluous but it’s a common saying like pussy cat or kitty cat.

And lastly come on you others becomes come on you two. I mean, why? Seems like a change just for the sake of it!

The illustrations

It’s not clear who illustrated the story for Sunny Stories. Sylvia I Venus did the cover and C Andrews is credited with additional illustrations. In the annual it is Sylvia I Venus’ work, so they could be the same ones used, or they may even have been redrawn like Soper did for the Famous Five. If anyone has the Sunny Stories issue in question let me know!

The annual has just four illustrations but they are lovely and include this detailed full-page one.

 

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Monday #536

Posted on July 17, 2023 by Fiona

I was away on holiday last week – hence the lack of posting. I saw a LOT of puffins but sadly they were all on mugs, postcards, cushions and so on. I managed to refrain from buying any of them, but I did treat myself to some new (non-puffin) books.

Letters to Enid 33

and

Enid Blyton’s Holiday Stories then and now, part 11

The ruins of Duffus Castle would be the perfect place for a Famous Five adventure – had they ever travelled as far as Scotland!

I didn’t find any secret passages but that’s not to say they weren’t there. And with RAF Lossiemouth easily visible from the top I bet the Five could have sniffed out some sort of mystery. It’s Five Have a Wonderful Time meets Five Go to Billycock Hill!

The collapsed portion at the front once contained a latrine and the great hall’s large fireplace. It slid down as the mound it was built on was man-made and not up to the weight of the stone castle which replaced the original wooden structure.

The castle is free to wander around and open 24/7 so there’s no grumpy staff at the entrance.

 

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June 2023 round up

Posted on July 6, 2023 by Fiona

June blessed us with a brief heatwave before endless rainy days, it also brought us the end of the school term.

What I have read

Quite a bit actually as I have been tending to pick up a book rather than watching TV/movies in the evenings. I’ve even started propping up my Kindle and reading that while I dry/straighten my hair instead of watching something on my phone so that’s easily an extra hour and a half of reading every week!

What I have read:

  • What Was Hidden at Ardhmor (Ardhmor #3) – Lea Booth
  • Tilly and the Lost Fairytales (Pages & Co #2) – Anna James
  • Murder in the First Edition (Beyond the Page Bookstore #3) – Lauren Elliot
  • Bookshop Girl (Bookshop Girl #1) – Chloe Coles
  • Dear Mrs Bird (Emmy Lake Chronicles #1) – AJ Pearce
  • Fangirl – Rainbow Rowell
  • Miss Peregrine’s Museum of Wonders – Ransom Riggs
  • No Rings Attached (Ms Right #2) – Rachel Lacey
  • Witches Get Stuff Done (Starfall #1) – Molly Harper
  • Letters from the Lighthouse – Emma Carroll
  • The Good, the Bad and the History (Chronicles of St Mary’s #14) – Jodi Taylor
  • Going Solo – Roald Dahl
  • Yours Cheerfully (Emmy Lake Chronicles #2) – AJ Pearce

And I’m still working on:

  • Keeper of Enchanted Rooms (Whimbrel House #1) – Charlie N Holmberg
  • The Queen’s Nose – Dick King-Smith
  • The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels (Dangerous Damsels #1) – India Holton

What I have watched

  • We’ve watched the odd episode of Richard Osman’s House of Games, but mostly we’ve been watching Lego Masters USA as we started that after finishing the Australian series.
  • I watched Muppet Treasure Island after reading and watching another version last month, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.
  • My sister and I finished watching Motel Makeover and continued to be baffled by the choices made by the two businesswomen in charge of the renovations.
  • With Brodie we watched the next Star Wars – Episode V. He loved it but we had to laugh at his lack of reaction to the famous No, I AM your father. I also put Night at the Museum back on for him which went down well.

What I have done

  • It seems like an eternity ago already but at the start of June Stef was still here. We visited The Secret Bunker (a former Cold War command centre and not very secret these days) and then the fishing village of Anstruther, Broughty Ferry beach, the urban beach and fountains in the city centre, and we had our traditional Nando’s too. We then went back to St Andrews and the West Sands for our last day.
  • We went to Longforgan for their annual scarecrow trail, this year’s theme was Scottish Icons – you can have a guess what the ones below were, Dundee Comic Con, and Perth (on the train) for the Perth Model Railway exhibition. There were a lot of great model railways including a very detailed Harry Potter one and one which had a Blyton-esque beach (complete with caves) and lighthouse.
  • Brodie and I had several afternoons in the garden after school, it was too hot to go to the park and we had ice lollies in the freezer!
  • I’ve been feeding the foxes that have been appearing in our back garden around midnight. I first noticed them as they sound like seagulls squawking when they are play fighting. I can then open the bathroom window and lean out to watch them and throw food down.
  • I took Brodie in to visit his old nursery as they were having a closing party – the land the nursery is on is being sold and the nursery shut and demolished this summer.

What did your June look like?

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Monday #534

Posted on July 3, 2023 by Fiona

Somehow it’s July! June seems to have gone by very fast, and now it’s the school holidays. This week we are going to sign up for the library’s summer reading challenge and we are going to try to visit all 14 libraries and get a stamp at each!

I’ve lived in Dundee all my life and worked for the libraries for almost 7 years but have never set foot in 7 of the libraries – that’s half of them! I’ll let you all know how we get on.

Now libraries and Enid Blyton haven’t always gotten on but I’ve just started wondering if she ever wrote about visiting or borrowing books from one. I can’t think of anything off the top of my head but surely she must have, at some point! If you can think of any examples put them in the comments below!

June round up

and

Letters to Enid 33

Talking of libraries having Googled Enid Blyton and library one of my old posts came up. It was 15th in the results which isn’t bad at all! (I knew those search terms were terrible as of course they brought up a) all the collections of books called little libraries etc and b) articles about Blyton being banned at libraries, but I did it anyway…)

Best of Blyton at the library

So far, from that list, I have read the Adventure Series TV novels (terrible), a few of the Malory Towers continuations (not very good), the Naughtiest Girl continuations (terrible), Holiday Stories (good, because it is 90-95% what Blyton originally wrote), Bizzy and the Bedtime Bear (terrible), and Real Fairies (wonderful).

That’s a poor success rate on enjoyment but being library books they didn’t cost me a penny.

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Famous Five – The Graphic Novels

Posted on June 30, 2023 by Fiona

This was going to be a review of a single graphic novel, but I started explaining about the two that were published in English, and found there were more in French, not to mention the German translations… So the review will come later.

The French Graphic Novels

At first I was convinced that there were six French graphic novels and then I found the seventh! Published between 2017 and 2022 the titles, in order, are  –

  1. Five on a Treasure Island
  2. Five Go Adventuring Again
  3. Five Run Away Together
  4. Five Go to Smuggler’s Top
  5. Five Get Into Trouble
  6. Five Go Off in a Caravan
  7. Five On a Hike Together

Obviously not the same as the original publishing order of the books, but close.

In French the titles are the same as those of the translations of the novels and even with my basic high school French (or what I remember of it anyway) it’s not that hard to work out most of the titles though I have used Google Translate to be sure!

  1. Le Club des Cinq et Le Trésor de l’île (The Club of Five and The Treasure of the Island) 
  2. Le Club des Cinq et Le Passage Secret (The Club of Five and The Secret Passage) 
  3. Le Club des Cinq Contre-attaque (The Club of Five Strikes Back)
  4. Le club des Cinq en Vacances (The Club of Five on Vacation)
  5. Le club des Cinq en Péril (The Club of Five in Peril)
  6. Le club des Cinq et Le Cirque De l’Étoile (The Club of Five and the Circus of the Star)
  7. Le Club des Cinq en Randonnée (The Club of Five on a Hike)

Putting a secret passage into the title of book #2 is interesting as it is a bit less vague than going adventuring again, and slightly narrows the title down to one of several books. So it is perhaps odd that they have made books #3 and #4 more vague with references to striking back (very Star Wars of them!) and going on vacation. Perhaps the French translation of Smuggler’s Top is not very catchy. It may be Pic du Corsaire but I’m not sure.

Obviously there is a circus in Five Go Off in a Caravan but I don’t know who or what the star is.

The graphic novels were written by Nataël and the illustrations were by Béja (who I believe is Nataël’s son), rather in the style of Herge’s Tintin .

In France they were published by Hachette Livre. I am really not good when it comes to working out the complicated world of publishing imprints… But here goes. Hachette (known as Hachette Livre in France) publishes primarily in French, English and Spanish. The UK branch is Hachette UK, and Hodder & Stoughton is an imprint of Hachette…

So it makes sense that the UK would get a translation of these graphic novels published by Hodder Children’s Books.

In French Julian is François, Dick is Mick (I assume short for Michael) and Anne is Annie. George is Claude (Claudine, or Claudette?) and Timmy is Dagobert. Kirrin (Farm and Castle) is Kernach, but Kirrin Cottage is Villa des Mouettes. Castaway Hill is rocher Maudit which translates as Accursed Rock. I recognise the Five’s names from the French translations of the novels so presumably the other translations are also consistent.

The German Graphic Novels

As far as I can tell the German translations by Annette von der Weppen came out around the same time as the French editions. Again, the titles are the same as the German translated novels. 

  1. Fünf Freunde erforschen die Schatzinsel (Five Friends are Exploring Treasure Island)
  2. Fünf Freunde auf neuen Abeneuern (Five Friends on New Adventures)
  3. Fünf Freunde auf geheimnisvollen Spuren (Five Friends on Mysterious Tracks)
  4. Fünf Freunde auf Schmugglerjagd (Five Friends on a Smuggler Hunt)
  5. Fünf Freunde 5: Fünf Freunde geraten in Schwierigkeiten (Five Friends Get Into Trouble)
  6. Fünf Freunde und der Zirkus Stern (Five Friends and the Circus Star)
  7. Fünf Freunde auf grosser Fahrt (Five Friends on a Long Journey)

My German is pretty much non-existent apart from counting to 12 and a few words I’ve picked up from Rammstein songs, so these are Google Translate’s work again. Most of these are pretty close to the English titles – I mean a hike is a long journey and a new adventure is adventuring again. But then we have the mysterious tracks… that sounds more like it should be Five on a Secret Trail than Run Away Together. The German also adds a star to the circus.

In German none of the Five’s names change and Kirrin is still Kirrin, while Smuggler’s Top is the excellent-sounding Schmugglerhügel aka Smuggler Hill.

The Portuguese Graphic Novels

From what I can gather these translations (I can’t find the name of the translator unfortunately) began to be published in 2020, with the first two coming out in February and the rest later. I haven’t found any evidence of a Portuguese edition of Hike, but as they started publishing them later it may be that they will get to that one this year or next.

Although I know no Portuguese a few of these sound exactly like they should and Google Translate did the rest.

  1. Os Cinco e a Ilha do Tesouro (The Five and Treasure Island)
  2. Os Cinco e a Passagem Secreta (The Five and the Secret Passage)
  3. Os Cinco Voltam à Ilha (The Five Return to the Island)
  4. Os Cinco e os Contrabandistas (The Five and the Smugglers)
  5. Os Cinco na Casa do Mocho (The Five at House of Owl)
  6. Os Cinco e o Circo (The Five and the Circus)

Nothing too wild here. Google Translate is quite irritating as it sometimes refuses to translate parts of text – it kept leaving Casa de Mocho in Portuguese so I had to put the words in separately to get House of Owl.

In Portuguese Julian is Júlio, George is Zé – which is short for Maria Jose, Dick is David, Anne is Ana, and Timmy is Tim.

The Dutch Graphic Novels

I couldn’t find a Dutch edition for Hike, either, but then the first one is dated 2022 and so they perhaps haven’t reached the seventh title yet. I had a much harder time tracking down all six of these, perhaps because they are newer.

  1. De Vijf en het Gestrande Goudschip (The Five and the Stranded Gold Ship)
  2. De vijf en de Geheime Doorgang (The Five and the Secret Passage)
  3. De Vijf gaan Ervandoor (The Five Run Off)
  4. De Vijf Op de Smokkelaarsrots (Five on Smuggler’s Rock)
  5. De Vijf in de Knel (The Five in a Squeeze/Pinch [or the knuckle?])
  6. De Vijf in een Kampeerwagen (The Five in a Campervan)

I know no Dutch at all but even I could guess that goudschip was goldship (though you often doubt that it would be that simple!) and most of the others are pretty close to the original titles. According to the blurb the house is called Smugglers Nest rather than Top, so it’s interesting they were for Rock in the title.

Google wouldn’t translate de Knel with the rest of the title – though I had an idea that knel would mean trouble – death knell? But alone Google translates is as either a squeeze or a pinch which would make sense as in a added to either of those is the same as in trouble. It also suggested the knuckle, though, which makes less sense. Campervan makes me wonder how much they’ve changed the story! (Though a Caravan wasn’t quite accurate to begin with.)

When it comes to the characters and place names the Dutch sticks very closely to the original. The Five are Julian, George, Dick, Annie and Tim, Kirrin, Fanny and Quentin are the same with Dutch words for Island, Aunt and Uncle. Pierre Lenoir’s name is the same but his nickname is Roetje which still means soot. Richard Kent, Rookie and Owl’s Dene also stay the same. Mrs Stick becomes Mevrouw Stok, which retains the same sound without being exactly the same. I assume these are the same translations applied to the novels and the dubbing for the Dutch release of the 90s TV series.

The English Graphic Novels

There have only been two UK editions so far, and they have been translated by Emma Page. I recall people talking about the second book first, though they were released on the same day. I can only assume they weren’t well advertised and people were stumbling across them at random.

It will be interesting to see if we get another four – or five, and if there are any more French editions to come. I suppose it will all depend on how well they sell. It’s heartening to see that they are being translated so quickly and into so many different languages.

The covers are different for the UK editions – all the other languages have the same scenic backgrounds while these are plain. However I have seen French Format carré – square edition versions of the first two books, which have the same covers as above. Below are the original scenic covers.

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Letters to Enid part 32: From volume 2 issue 20

Posted on June 28, 2023 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from volume 2, issue 20.
September 29th – October 12th, 1954.

OUR

LETTER PAGE

A letter from Beverley Cooper, 39 Elwood Street, Brighton, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Dear Enid Blyton,
I enjoy reading your magazine and have all the copies from the first issue. I was wondering if you could print my name for a pen-friend. I know that you have said that if you did this, the person would be flooded with replies – but I promise you this, that if I get too many letters I will take them to school (we have more than 1,000 girls there) and get my friends to write.
Love from
Beverley Cooper

(It is true that I have always re- fused to print anyone’s name in this way, Beverley-but I will make an exception, and see if you really can manage to fix up scores of pen- friendships between overseas readers. Good luck to you!)

A letter from Annette Starbuck, Radford Road, Nottingham.
Dear Enid Blyton,
Please will you write a story in our magazine to tell children NOT to stand or walk right on the edge of the pavement, because I did, and I fell on to a passing car, cut my forehead, and had 18 stitches in, and had to stay in hospital for eight days.
Love from
Annette Starbuck.

(Your letter will be better than a story, Annette – what a dreadful thing to happen! I’m glad you are better.)

A letter from Kathleen Scott, Beverley, Yorks
Dear Enid Blyton,
Since I joined the Sunbeams I have been working very hard indeed to earn money for our Blind Children. I darned the socks weekly, I helped to make bootees and sold them to an aunt, and I have been helping Mummy in the house. So now I enclose 10s. 6d. for your Blind Children, and some day I hope that their lives will be as happy as my own.
With all my love,
Kathleen Scott
(Sunbeam).

(A kind and generous letter, Kathleen. You certainly shine brightly.)

What a week! Blyton breaks her own rule about pen-friends, and the fund-raiser doesn’t get the winning spot!

I’m actually not sure if the first letter still gets a prize at this point as that hasn’t been referenced for a while. But I’m sure Beverly got a lot of letters after this was published – I wonder just how many, and how many were replied to?

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Monday #533

Posted on June 26, 2023 by Fiona

It doesn’t happen all that often but there is Enid Blyton related news this week!

The BBC have announced a new Famous Five adaptation which, apparently, is already being filmed! There will be 3 90 minute episodes and it will be created and produced by Nicolas Winding Refn. There’s very little else been advertised about it so far – other than words like modern, progressive and reinterpret being thrown around.

Will it be one book in three parts, or three books with one part each? Either way, which book(s) will feature?
Who has been cast?
When will it be on TV?

So many questions and literally no answers – yet.

But here’s a fun opinion on the incongruous choice of creator  (I keep the blog family friendly but this article contains brief descriptions of violent and sexual scenes in movies).

Letters to Enid 32

and

Five On a Treasure Island: The Graphic Novel

In celebration of this news why not revisit some of the fun of the best Famous Five adaptation to date and have a laugh with some hopefully funny captions.

The Famous Five 90s Series: Some (Funny) Captions

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Enid Blyton’s Holiday Stories then and now, part 10

Posted on June 23, 2023 by Fiona

This is part 10 of 12, I said last week there were 5 stories to go but I think it was actually 6 – 5 I have and 1 I don’t.

Previous parts look at story 1, stories 2 and 3, stories 4 and 5, stories 6 and 7, stories 8 to 10,  stories 11 to 13, stories 14 to 16, stories 17 to 18 and stories 19 to 20.

enid-blytons-holiday-stories

Shut the Gate!

This one is from Sunny Stories #424 from 1948, and first reprinted in The Eleventh Holiday Book. There is another story coming up called Please Shut the Gate, but this appears to be a different story and not a renaming. As with the story above it was not reprinted again during Blyton’s life, but has had four other printings since 1970.

A brief review

The story begins with Pat and Biddy getting shouted at by a farmer for not shutting one of his gates. Although the children claim to love animals they really are rather stupid about thinking closing gate’s doesn’t really matter.

Back on their uncle’s farm it’s revealed that although they are not naughty children they are forever leaving doors and gates open and leaving their bedroom in a terrible mess. (Makes me wonder why how the children can be so unconcerned about open gates when clearly they’ve been told over and over already).

It all comes to a head when their carelessness means Bray – the donkey they adore so much – gets into the farmhouse garden and causes carnage. Uncle tells them he is going to sell Bray and that’s the final push that makes the children feel tremendous guilt and teaches them a lesson.

I assume it’s the summer holidays but this is another not that summery story.

The updates

This is quite a long story, so I expected there to be more changes than there actually were.

First up – the title has lost its exclamation mark.

The children no longer call the farmer sir, and tramp is changed to walker.

Originally Biddy is to sew a button back onto her shoe and this is changed to jacket. That then necessitates another change from leather to thick material.

Other than those the only changes are the removal of hyphens from card-game, to-morrow, to-day and tea-time, and the removal of italics from two words (with eight other uses of italics being left.)

What’s more interesting is what they didn’t change. The names are the same – and how many children today would have heard the name Biddy? They might have heard old biddy as in an unpleasant old woman, though!

There is also a lot of hitting of Bray the donkey. Now this is important to the story – this and the threat of him being sold is what really drives it home to the children that their actions have consequences. Yet most references to spankings, canings, any sort of physical violence towards people or animals has been taken out of other reprinted stories – usually replaced with yelling, scolding or occasionally shaking.

First Uncle Ben recalls that Bray has had a lot of beatings for past bad behaviour. When he gets into the garden there were three men hitting him with sticks, he gets such a whack with a stick, and Biff! Uncle Ben hit him again. Afterwards Uncle Ben is quite satisfied, remarking Well, he’s had a good thrashing, anyhow!

I’m not advocating for changing these things – I’m just highlighting the total lack of consistency of the editing process.

The illustrations

Sunny stories had illustrations by Joyce A. Johnson while Galbraith O’Leary provides 9 illustrations for the reprint in the Eleventh Holiday Book. The three chosen colours are certainly striking, but the red makes the farmer look quite terrifying. I know he’s angry about the gate but that’s just not a natural skin tone!

 

Look Out for the Elephant!

First published in Sunny Stories #465 in 1949 – the only reprint during Blyton’s life was in The Tenth Holiday Book. It has five further prints from 1971 on, including two books titled Look Out for the Elephant and Other Stories – though both are identical in terms of content.

A brief review

This is one of the shorter stories in the collection. Sara gets to school and hears that there is an elephant loose in the park. Men with sticks have been sent for (is there a brigade of men-with-sticks, ready to be called for such an emergency?) but Sara doesn’t like the idea. She is very worries abut the flowers in the park and so heads off with a load of buns to tempt the elephant safely from the park.

Honestly this one’s a bit weird. Everyone’s main focus is on the flowers. It’s why Sara goes to lure the elephant along – she doesn’t want him to trample the flowers. Even the elephant’s keeper (who has been waiting at the gates for some reason, instead of collecting his own elephant?) says he was worried about Old Jumbo trampling the flowers.

Nobody was worried that the elephant might hurt himself? Hurt someone, or their pets while on a rampage? Cause damage to something more expensive and harder to replace than flowers?

It’s also not a massively obvious summer story other than the fact there are flowers in the flower beds indicating it’s somewhere between spring and autumn.

The updates

Very few. I’m surprised this story is even in, given the changes in attitudes to circus animals. A donkey ride was cut from an earlier story but Sara rides the elephant at the end of this tale.

Sara’s curly head becomes just her head.

The only substantial change is to where the buns came from. Originally She turned and ran into the school. She went to where the eleven o’clock buns and milk were set ready for the children, and she put twelve of the buns into her school satchel! This has become She turned and ran over to the baker’s. She bought twelve buns out of her pocket money and put them into her school satchel.

You don’t get eleven o’clock milk and buns these days (more’s the pity) but you also don’t see elephants in circuses or giving rides in zoos, either. Perhaps the editors thought taking the school buns was too close to theft – but then leaving school without telling a teacher is not allowed these days either.

The only other change is the removal of the hyphen from park-gates. All the italics were left this time.

The illustrations

Sylvia I Venus provided illustrations for the Sunny Stories version, while Mary Brooks did four for the Tenth Holiday Book.

 

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Letters to Enid part 31: From volume 2 issue 19

Posted on June 21, 2023 by Fiona

Previous letters pages can be found here.

Letters page from Volume 2, issue 19.
September 15th – 28th, 1954

OUR

LETTER PAGE

 A letter from Alan Lewis, Belfast, N.I.
Dear Enid Blyton,
About a week after I received my lovely F.F. badge I decided to do something for your Children’s Home. So with my brother’s help I held a display of toy cars (we own about a hundred). The most interesting event was “Formation Driving” in which the cars formed EIIR, and F.F.C. (for Famous Five Club). Altogether we made 5/-. Please buy something for the Home children.
Love from
Alan Lewis

(A most original idea, Alan, and a generous one. I congratulate you.)

A letter from Ann and John McMullin, Caversham.
Dear Enid Blyton,
Tonight we had a sudden thunderstorm and the rain poured down. Soon after, the sun came out while it was still raining. My brother and I knew there ought to be a rainbow. We went to look and there was a very bright one. I expect you remember a story of a rainbow in your magazine, which told us how to pick out the colours in the right order. Well, we remembered.
Yours sincerely,
Ann and John McMullin.

(I am glad you remembered how to pick out the colours.)

A letter from Miranda Walker, Poundsbridge.
Dear Enid Blyton,
When my small sister was 22 months old she had measles, and the only thing that cheered her up was to have her Noddy book read to her, she loved Noddy so much. Soon after that when she was well again, she used to look at the coloured letters of the title and by that she learned her alphabet.
Much love from
Miranda Walker.

(It’s the first time I have heard of such a small child learning her alphabet in this way, Miranda!)

Still three letters this week, though the top quarter of the page was taken up with the last paragraphs of a Brer Rabbit story. Previous weeks letters pages have had a small illustration to take up the extra space.

Two letters with boys’ names on them this week which is nice to see. I love Alan’s toy car show – that’s definitely something we could do as we have at least 100 toy cars, maybe more!

 

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Monday #532

Posted on June 19, 2023 by Fiona

After a week of glorious sunshine today we’ve had a lot of much-needed rain and some thunderstorms – a natural consequence of all the heat.

Letters to Enid 31

and

Enid Blyton’s Holiday Stories then and now, part 10

I have already featured the graphic novel of Five on a Treasure Island in a Monday post, saying I’d like to give it a go. Well, thanks to Stef I now own it – and Five Go Adventuring Again in the same format.

So now I have no excuses for not reading and reviewing them at some point!

 

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