What was your favourite Enid Blyton book?

[Flapjacker48]

When I was a child (80s) read loads of Enid Blyton books (passed down from siblings, library etc) and in the past few months have read loads of these free online (original/early editions, none with updated texts) - prob way more than when I was a child!

Although dated in many ways I have a fondness for the "family" type EB books - (house on the corner, family at red-roofs, six bad boys) which were less well known than Famous five/secret seven etc.

Also I have read several books about EB (biography, book by her agent and a book by her daughter about her childhood) and found these really interesting, of course like all authors/famous people in general who you think you know their lives are more complex (and interesting!) and different to how one would expect and how they are "presented"

Faraway tree and then St Clare's when I was a bit older.

Thank you so much for posting this link. It even has the function to send straight to Kindle so now I have a load of my childhood favourites for some pure nostalgia reading

@FourChimneys . I still have my copy of Shadow the Sheepdog. I loved that book.
My other fave EB books are:
Standalone
Hollow tree house
The six bad boys
Those dreadful children.
Mr Galliano's Circus.
Six cousins at Mistletoe Farm.
Six cousins again.
Series
The famous five
The five find outers and dog
The Adventures series
The secret series
Mallory Towers
Did not like the Secret Seven much

Just to add, I love this thread. Thank you OP.

I’ll be more specific- I will tell you my favourite chapters!
It’s the last chapters of The Faraway Tree books. The ones where they go to best lands you could ever imagine.

The Magic Faraway Tree books have stayed with me my whole life. When I think of them now (nearly 50) I still feel the excitement, the way I did when I read them as a young child. I associate them with cosiness and a happy childhood. They were the start of a lifetime love of books.
My DSs read and loved them too.

This thread is making me want to reread all these books!

I loved Amelia Jane, the Wishing Chair and the Far Away tree, when I was little, then Mallory Towers, St Clare's, the Famous Five and Secret Seven when I was a bit older.

Also liked some of the less well known ones like Red Roofs, the Mystery books and the Caravan Family.

I loved the Secret Seven and imagined myself being one of them.

I think my all time favourite was Enid Blyton's Book of Fairies. I wandered around looking for fairy rings and thinking there were rings by toadstools that I could pull up to reveal steps going down into some secret land. I bought myself a new copy and admit to having a sneaky read sometimes.

No one mentioned Noddy yet, the illustrations of toytown were charming, the use of certain characters, unpleasant, as the baddies of its time.

It was child sized.

I did

I remember learning the word ‘alibi’ because someone - probably Fatty- explains to someone else - probably Bets - what it means.

The faraway tree
The secret island and secret of spiggy holes
The twins at st Claire's series

I quite fancied Mr Scornful, in a eight-year-old kind of way.
We used to play “land of far beyond” in the same way the Little Women used to play Pligrims Progress. We also used to play “going to different lands via the Faraway tree”.
I’m now remembering The Adventure of Pip (or similar) which I liked - it was about a pixie and had a lot of information about he natural world. And I loved a book of short stories about Fairyland - Enid’s fairyland was always so easily accessed, I really felt as a child that I might take a wrong turn and end up there.
I think she really had a gift for images and scenes that just stick in your memory - the golden statues with jewelled eyes on the mysterious island, the steam coming out of holes in the moor from the “spook trains”, the mysterious pool that shone like butter in the Enchanted Wood. And she had a feeling for situations that children love to imagine themselves in - a secret tunnel, a lighthouse, an underground river, an abandoned tin mine, a magic wood.

@Marsyas I thought Mr Scornful did reform during the book (maybe not enough!). He did put up with the kids for the journey and always dipped into his pocket to buy food! As I said earlier in the thread I only read this for the first time a few months ago and I was hoping he would get his burden sorted, probably more than the children.

In some of the Enid Blyton biographies and book by her daughter there are some interesting letters written to a nurse who looked after her daughters and was a good friend at one point. Lots of the Mr Scornful charestistics EB attributes to he selfish (Scornful of those who she thought were not as clever as her etc) which was interesting.

The Five Find-Outers were so funny, I can remember my sister and I reading them to each other and rolling round laughing. I read them to the DC and still found them amusing...if I did have to read ahead and edit.

@FourChimneys I'd forgotten that Shadow the Sheepdog was written by Enid Blyton. I loved it.

The Magic Faraway Tree were the books of my childhood 🥰

I think Shadow the Sheepdog was the inspiration to Viz's Black Bag, the faithful border bin liner.

I loved the adventures of Pip, I actually loved all of them. I read them over and over growing up.

I loved Enid Blyton. I started with Amelia Jane, Bimbo and Topsy and Mr Pinkwhistle. I had a book called The Adventures of Pip which was about a little pixie who had all sorts of nature based adventures. Brer Rabbit was great and The Adventures of Binkle and Flip was strangely weird.

As I grew up a bit I remember loving the Faraway tree books and Hollow tree house. Then I remember coming home from the library and reading my first ever Famous Five book and it absolutely TRANSPORTING me to this amazing adventure. That stands out for me so clearly.

I loved all the popular ones mentioned here but my favourites as an older child were the Mistletoe Farm ones, which gave me an obsession with growing up to live in an ancient farmhouse. There was also one called Tales of Brave Adventure, about King Arthur and Robin Hood that I probably knew by heart.

Has anyone seen that they’re remaking the famous five as a TV shoe, featuring GoT’s Joffrey?! I am EXCITED.

my favourites were famous five, the adventurous 4 (there’s a second book in this series which I only discovered a couple of years ago), the secret island and the X Of adventure series. Oh and Mallory towers, how I longed to go to that school and swim in that pool!

I think it’s a shame some schools have removed the books from their libraries as they are dated. They were dated when I read them. Fair enough if there is actual racist language (which there was) and the golly ones are not acceptable, but I think they have been cleaned up over the last 30-40 years. We don’t tell kids not to read dickens, or WW2 stories, as they’re dated do we? It generates discussion on how and why things have changed. The blatant sexism in some stories annoyed me in the 90s, it hasn’t made me a meek female.

@SiblingFights Is there much problematic in the find outers?

So many that I'd forgotten all about mentioned on here. I think I'm going to have to reread some of them! I definitely credit Enid Blyton for my love of books. I had one that hasn't been mentioned yet, but I can't remember the title. It was about a family who adopted/rescued a load of unwanted animals. I know it was Enid Blyton because I had it in a double edition with The Children of Willow Farm Again.

I loved Bimbo and Topsy! There was a dog called Bob who they thought had melted in the sun but it turned out just to be the remains of an ice cream he'd been eating!

And the best part was they couldn't help themselves and accidentally "licked him up" 🤣
@FourChimneys I'd forgotten shadow the sheepdog until you mentioned it!