to read Enid Blyton with caution?

[catandbabyequalschaos]

DD is only 11 months so this isn't an issue yet.

However, we have been given by a relative some old, beautiful sets of The Wishing Chair and The Faraway Tree, which I remember adoring as a young child.

Fast forward to now and I really have my doubts about them. It isn't just the blatant racism and sexism in them, but the way the children mercilessly bully anyone who isn't like them, the way names are chucked around carelessly and the references to spankings in so many of the books make me really uncomfortable too!

Have any of you not read Enid Blyton with DCs?

[Ginnytonic82]

They have had a go at updating some of the names and dialogue in Enid Blyton books, for example the famous five are now Joe, Beth, Frannie and Rick as opposed to Jo, Bess, Fanny and Dick. Also Dame Slap from The Faraway Tree is now Dame Snap. Still quite a few humdingers in there though!

[MrTumblesKnickers]

Gosh, curlew you really don't like EB! I do consider her a classic author though (based on your definition) and I can't wait to read her books to my children.

[Shallishanti]

Curlew is so right. I read masses of EB books, bought them from jumble sales, I had read ALL the books in the childrens section of the public library and there just wasn't the range of good children's literature that there is now (and even if there had been, I wouldn't have been able to afford it). I used to eat angel delight and freeze dried runner beans, it was all that was available, I thought it was OK, it did me no harm but now I want something better for me and DCs

[curlew]

I don't like the idea that any old crap is good enough for children. Food, education, entertainment, music, books.......Children deserve the best we can give them.

[Alexandrite]

I bought some 1980s Malory Tower books from Amazon to read to my dd as I loved them as a child. They are a good read, but the bits that have shocked me have been a) how vile they are to anyone who is different and b) the spanking bits. There is a bit in one of them where a character called Alicia tells the others that her older brother spanks her 12 year old cousin June (who also attends Malory Towers) in the school holidays, but that June still adores him.

[MrTumblesKnickers]

"I don't like the idea that any old crap is good enough for children."

Who on earth thinks that?!

[HotBurrito1]

DS2 (who is 6) and I were having a great chuckle about Anne wanting to set up the beds rather than go on an adventure with George and the boys. He laughs about the daft things the characters say, but enjoys the stories.

[Bowlersarm]

OP, after your last post, I don't know why you are here asking about Enid Blyton then? It sounds like you have already made your mind up that you don't want your daughter to be enriched by her books.

[Retropear]

Sorry Curlew but children deserve to be given the tools to become avid readers as avid readers do better at school.The tools after the mechanics of reading are a steady supply of books they enjoy and millions of children around the world adore EB,Horrid Henry and a shed load of other authors we as adults may turn our noses up at.

Thankfully I've brought my kids up well enough fr them to enjoy a huge variety of books without them enacting out the less desirable bits.

They're avid readers of a huge variety of books and very literate.

They all cut their reading teeth on EB as did I.

[catandbabyequalschaos]

Re-read my title Bowlers :) I'm wondering a) if other parents have had similar concerns and b) what they did about them.

I honestly wonder why anyone posts anything at all, at times!

[cranberryorange]

For some odd reason i kept all of my Enid Blyton books from when i was a child back in the 70's. I absolutely loved them as a child and couldnt get enough of The Faraway Tree and Mr Pinkwhistle.

Dh nearly fell over when he saw my copy of The Three Golliwogs and flicked through the pages and i was bit embarrassed that i'd kept it for sentimental reasons (a gift from Gran). I'm guessing it must be banned now and rightly so.

My DDs were never interested in anything as drippy as Enid Blyton and preferred Harry Potter and Jacqueline Wilson but i wouldnt have handed my old versions over even though they were more than capable of spotting blatant racism and sexism.

[Bowlersarm]

Oh. You're right. Sorry.

Then I say - no don't read with caution. Embrace and enjoy. Take them for what they are-books written 50 to nearly 100 years ago.

(I think I said similar in my first thread but it seems so long ago now, I appear to be going round in circles)

[Bowlersarm]

....my first post not thread.....aggghh...

[FetchezLaVache]

I'm on the fence on this one. I recently re-read several Famous Five books in a fit of nostalgia, and was quite horrified by how sexist, snobbish, racist and just poorly written they are.

And they're not even good stories. They're all basically the same:

1. School holidays, but Uncle Quentin is working on something top secret, so the children have to be sent away to a lighthouse.
   
2. They befriend a working class child, who refuses to wear shoes and can't talk properly.
   
3. Unshod WC child alerts them to the existence of an ancient tunnel.
   
4. Mysterious men are spotted in the vicinity of the tunnel.
   
5. The Five work out that something nefarious is afoot and capture the men in the tunnel.
   
   And all shot through with plentiful descriptions of unfeasibly large meals, with Anne and George doing the washing-up afterwards.
   
   On the other hand, I got sooooo much pleasure out of them all as a child- Secret Seven, Five Find-Outers (and Dog), Famous Five and particularly the Barney books and the Adventure series, and I'm a bit of a wet liberal, if anything.

[valiumredhead]

Catandbaby-actually ds and I recently watched The Help, he was 11 , it contains the N word. He loved the film and I'm sure that's partly because we discussed just how much things have thankfully changed now.

We read a very old Tom Sawyer book when he was about 6, it's quite shocking to see what was acceptable 30 years ago (it was my book, like an annual with lovely pictures) but even at 6 ds knew there were words in it that were not used today as they were hurtful and nasty. I think we should credit kids with some sense tbh.

[MotherofBear]

Curlew, you're right, there are absolutely no boys who want to be girls in Enid Blyton's books!

I think they are still just stories though, and they reflect the views of the times they were written. Yes, it was an time when sexism and racism abounded and that isn't good. But if you are teaching your children that sexism and racism and other 'isms' are wrong, then surely it will do them no harm to read books with those attitudes. They'll know, from us, their parents, that it in no way reflects the attitudes we/they should have now.

If you prevent children from reading anything with outdated attitudes in, then they won't be able to read anything much prior to this century

OP In answer to your actual question, if you feel the need to be cautious then of course you should be. If you dislike certain aspects, then discuss them with your child and explain how different things are nowadays. If you really are uncomfortable, then don't read the books at all and find ones you are happy with. But please don't choose Horrid Henry instead, they're awful!

[MotherofBear]

'a' time, not 'an' time!

[AliaTheEvilLeaper]

I LOVED Enid Blyton as a child and have thus far managed to avoid being a racist bigot. I really don't its an issue.

This! I was a huge Enid Blyton fan as a child. I read all the Famous Five, Secret Seven, Adventurous Four, Five Finder Outers and Dog, all the boarding school ones and the mischievous ones like Mr Twiddle/Meddle etc.
Basically, if it was Enid Blyton I read it!
I'm not racist or homophobic as a result.
I think it's a sad state of affairs if you start censoring children's literature.

[AliaTheEvilLeaper]

I always substitute Dick for Anne whenever she is cooking/cleaning, means that DD thinks boys do all the domestic chores in the famous five

What happens when you know, your child grows up and is able to read for themselves and knows you swapped stories about or made things up to suit you?
This thread reminds me of that episode of Friends where Phoebe's mum used to shut off all the films before the end as she didn't want to traumatise her.
Cue a grown up Phoebe wondering what the hell kind of film she was watching when she was watching Old Yeller.
He had babies, not rabies! Then when he got taken out the back and shot she was traumatised as that wasn't the ending!
Her mum had switched it off at a 'nice' bit and said "the end!"
You do realise that's you lot, don't you, doing the exact same thing, but with books?!

[valiumredhead]

You are right Alia. I love that episode

[BeCool]

I just picked up a beautifully illustrated book of EB bedtime stories at a car boot and really did enjoy reading them to DD's who enjoyed them too.

Luckily the Golliwog story was the first one in the book and so the DD's didn't notice that some pages had been removed.

[BeCool]

Yes I did censor it, but I feel for good reason.

[manicinsomniac]

I don't even consider them to be racist/sexist books really. They are products of their time. If they were written in 2013 they would be very racist/sexist. But when they were written in the 1950s those attitudes were normal and acceptable. Enid Blyton wasn't a bigot, she was a woman of those decades.