Who grew up reading Enid Blyton books?

[OldFred]

Just seen that The Magic Faraway Tree movie is to be released in the UK on 27 March 2026 🙂

I will hold judgement until I've seen it on it compares to the books but as a child, I devoured EB books.
I loved them all but TMFT holds a special place in my heart so fingers crossed!

I know EB books rightly so have had their fair share of criticism but (immigrant) childhood me just took them at face value, and as an adult and parent, my enduring love for them remains.
The Mini Old Freds have inherited all my copies and love them too.

What are your favourite EB books?
(Hoping to come across some I've not heard of!)

Not me, I'm afraid. I have read one or two, though can't remember which ones, but I grew up on Just William books, then once I reached about 11, I added true crime and autobiographies to the mix....

I loved EB especially the Magic Faraway Tree and The Adventures of Mr Pink Whistle

EB started my love of reading - the faraway tree, the wishing chair, the famous five, secret seven, MT etc. Then read the land of far beyond, which felt a little darker. Some people may be snobby about her works, but they made me want to read.

I also loved the Jill pony books, Judy Blume, SVH.

My reading has never been high-brow by any stretch. But I have fond memories of my immersion in those worlds when I was younger.

How has no one mentioned my naughty little sister here? Those were the first books I read, and later I liked naughtiest girl in the school and was absolutely obsessed with Malory Towers, although an irrational prejudice made me stay away from St Clare's. I read naughty little sister, magic faraway tree and Malory Towers to my children recently and they loved them, despite growing up in a completely different and non-English-speaking country, and of course it being 2025 and not 1945. (Also Milly Molly Mandy). For all the critics, any author that has that power to transcend time and country must have done something right.

I loved Mr. Twiddle.

Naughty Little Sister isn't by Enid Blyton, I think they were by Dorothy Edwards.

doh! silly me, that would explain it! thank you!

Probably anything but Enid Blyton! In certain circles she was already regarded as non- U even in the 60s.

I loved them all. I had the full sets of Famous Five, Secret Seven, Malory Towers and St Clares. Also read all of the Adventure books, America Jane, Five Find Outers. My favourite book was Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm. I have never met anyone else who's heard of it so happy to see a couple of posters have mentioned it.

But what books did she specifically write herself that were much better than EB's books?!

Or was she one of these people who have all kinds of great opinions about how rubbish other people supposedly are, but mysteriously never seem to come up with something better themselves - even when they're in a similar kind of profession i.e. teaching/informing/entertaining children?

Something I read in one of those modern spoof Ladybird books always stays with me and makes me laugh more than it should. It was about going to the art gallery and a snooty child says "Those paintings are rubbish, Mummy, I could have painted much better ones myself!" His mum replies, "But you didn't... did you, Peter?!"

@TickingcrocodileSix Cousins at Mistletoe Farm was actually quite a 'grown up' book in many ways touching on adult relationships, potential separation etc

I’d forgotten Mistletoe Farm - loved that as well.

PP mentioned My Naughty Little Sister (I know not EB) and I enjoyed that too 😀

Despite enjoying St Clare’s I never got into Mallory Towers. I always wondered what a trunk was - the type they took to school with them and had hidden treats - I assumed it was like a chest 😂

Larry. Daisy, Pip and Bets. They were 'The mystery of' series.

I still hsve thst drama on cd. It made me cry more than once.

I devoured them all. Malory Towers, Magic Faraway Tree, and the Island of Adventure series were my absolute favourites.
1970s.

Ironically, in later editions, they bowdlerised the many times when Fatty was described (often by PC Goon) as fat and changed 'that fat boy' to 'that big boy'; although once, the censors hilariously thought that changing 'fat' to 'enormous' was a kind thing to do!

It was a kind of hidden-in-plain-sight in-joke that Fatty was fat, but because his initials happened to spell F.A.T. (well done, his parents!), it was taken that people (the nice ones, at least) called him Fatty because of those initials, and not because he actually was fat!

I did they were my favourite growing up 😊 ❤️ I've still got them and re-read them

I’ve never read any of the recent editions of the Five Find-Outers, but you’ve just reminded me that The Island of Adventure reads far more oddly once they removed all reference to the black servant Jojo’s race. All references to ‘black’ become ‘big’, but as he was written as an unpleasant racial stereotype (Angry Black Man, speaking a sort of patois and continually ‘rolling his eyes’, also cowardly, superstitious, criminal and very stupid, continually outwitted by children and scolded by his employer), the character now only makes any kind of sense if you understand him as an offensive racist stereotype who’s had all references to his race removed!

I actually quite liked that the obvious hero of the Five Find-Outers was fat, as well as being the leader, clever, quick-witted, rich, resourceful and kind to dim-witted Bets. It’s so rare to find being fat as anything other than a marker of unpleasantness or laziness in children’s books of that era — Gwen, Alma Pudden etc. Even Elf in the much more enlightened a Trebizon books is continually teased about her weight, in a supposedly good-natured way.

That’s very true - Fatty always listened to Bets and showed kindness to her - if my memory serves correctly especially in The Mystery of The Missing Necklace 😀

I think her books are plot and character driven and teachers are looking for more than that. I like plot and character so I loved her stories. I also read them all by the time I was about 7. I guess I still like books like that.

Oh, I realised i forgot to say what I’d intended to be the entire point of my post, which was that EB had good reasons for making Fatty fat as well as tall — his whole shtick is disguising himself as other people to solve mysteries, sometimes telegraph boys or people close to his own age, but often adult men. He couldn’t be a convincing adult without being big.

Wasn’t there an entire climax to one of the plots where he disguises himself as a waxwork Napoleon model (I think?) in a travelling show to overhear some crucial crooks’ meeting? Eight year old me found it very thrilling.😀

(Was that the Missing Necklace?)

Six Cousins is brilliant, and I agree it’s actually quite sophisticated for EB, I think partly because it’s not a matter of the ‘good’ country cousins just reforming the ‘bad/silly’ townie cousins — they all have an impact for good on one another (except possibly the mildly insufferable Susan).

And also, the adults aren’t flat characters either, or only there to be got out of the way so the plot can concentrate on the children, as in the FF books. There’s Linnie the farm wife with her private longings for music and poetry, and Rose the superficial socialite who can’t cope with her children changing, and David the man who wants to go back to farming and has married the wrong woman, and whatever macho wrangling is going on between the country cousins’ father and Twigg the poacher.

My favourite episode when I read it first as a child was the reformation of Jane the slob.

it's on YouTube as well:

I grew up on The Famous Five, Malory Towers and St. Clares!

I re-read the entire Malory Towers series last summer (including the "new" ones, which I thought were very faithful to the original 6), and had a whale of a time.

Fatty and Bets would so have ended up married, if the stories had continued on a decade or so (in real time, not in fiction-book time)!