Do you like Enid Blyton's works?

[davelee]

I am a big Enid Blyton fan. I enjoy reading them all.

[jno]

a bit too much sucking up to authority in them - notice how the Five Find-outers are always mocking the local bobby but crawling around the inspector. I enjoyed the Famous Five, but I wasn't that much interested in fairy stories.

[saxy_jag]

I was very much a Malory Towers girl, but always found a lot of her 'younger' stuff a bit twee. The teachers at my grammar school forbade us from reading them at school, so to take them in and read them was a bit of an act of rebellion for us.

[boxtops]

I did when I was of an age to read and enjoy them. They reflected middle-class life as it then was.
I find it hard to understand why now authors are encouraged only to write about things already in children's experiences. I read a book (aged about 14) about a girl who was 17 who flew a flying boat. Just because I couldn't do that myself, it didn't do me any harm. Imagination expands your horizons!
However (although not Blyton), I could never understand how Rupert Bear could go missing for days on end while he communed with wizards and unicorns, his mother Bear never was agitated, just welcomed him home when he returned.

[funnygirl]

I grew up on End Blyton's books.
I loved the all, especially the Adventure series.

[China Doll]

I liked the stories about the chair with wings, forget what it was called now... The rest of it was entertaining enough when I was of the age to enjoy it but my first choice was always Roald Dahl who I adored. I don't know if I ever thought her stories were very original (not that I could have put it this way as a child) because I'd read about a lot of the fairy tale type characters in Hans Christian Anderson and Brothers Grimm and again, I liked their fairy stories better.

[jno]

boxy, I believe there was a sort of time-warp wormhole thingy hanging over Nutwood Common, so he always came back soon after leaving. Besides, in my day, mothers didn't actually panic when kids didn't come straight home from school. We always went off somewhere to play without telling anyone; as long as we were home when the 5pm hooter sounded down at the docks, that was all that was required.

[cazzz1975]

I liked malory towers and to a lesser extent st clares, I would imagine by todays standards in the famous five anne would not be beaming with pride when her brother says "you will make a great little housewife" ;)

[hippyhoppy]

I read a Famous Five book a couple of years ago whilst down at my parents... bloody sexist clap trap!!! Poor old Anne had to do all the washing up after their picnics with lashings of ginger beer whilst the boys did nothing.... I was outraged.. mother thought it was hilarious as I had enjoyed those books whilst being a youngster a million years ago...! hee hee

[Whickerman]

loved noddy, and the fairy stories and the living toy stories as a youngster, and the famous five when about 10 years old. I have very fond memories of them, but like hippyhoppy I think I wouldn't fully approve if I re-read them so I'll just leave it

[cazzz1975]

lol hippy, she used to have to create te makeshift beds in caves as well, she never got a break :)

[boxtops]

Yes you're right, jno - I did have to go straight home from school (and mum knew what time the bus arrived) but we could disappear afterwards.

[jno]

hippyhoppy, yes, but you notice George didn't do these things, on account of being a tomboy. So it doesn't look as though Blyton had any problems with kids avoiding their traditional gender roles, if they wanted to.

[hippyhoppy]

jno.. I know... That's what annoyed me when I re-read.. George was obvs a lesbian.. Julian a control freak and Dick.. well his name says it all!! I should have just left well alone...

[horseshoes]

Oh I'm a huge fan. I still read them occasionally! I very recently bought one of my very favourite books when I was VERY young, Enid Blyton's "Chuff the Chimney Sweep and Other Stories. I've looked for it for years and eventually found a copy in New Zealand through a book search; it cost me £24 + p & p, but how happy was I?

[Rodge2]

When I was 7 my fab teacher Mrs McFarlane used to read our class 'Shadow the Sheepdog', on Friday afternoons last thing. The whole class was mesmerised, and I can remember the absolute silence in the room as we all absorbed the latest instalment. My best friend had been promised a puppy for Christmas, and vowed she'd call it Shadow. However as it turned out to be a Rhodesian Ridgeback, a more practical alternative had to be found!

[mosesg]

I am with you pixi, loved The Faraway Tree and Wishing Chair when I was little. When my nephew was old enought to read them, I bought them for him and he loved them and his sister read them as well whan she was older.