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?

[valiumredhead]

I agree manic.

[AliaTheEvilLeaper]

But when they were written in the 1950s those attitudes were normal and acceptable

Exactly. That's the way things were back in the 1950's. It is a book of its era, and has dated in the modern world.
I absolutely love Enid Blyton books, but if a child's book was written this year in the same tone, I wouldn't think it was acceptable.
The language she uses is part of history. It is a bygone time. Just because it isn't acceptable now (and rightly so) doesn't mean it has always been that way.
Why do some feel the need to airbrush history and pretend it didn't happen?
I'd rather let my kids read Enid Blyton and explain it is of a different era and some of the terminology used is not acceptable today and why.
There are some great adventure stories from a child's perspective, too - why should we ban them because we're thinking of an adult's perspective (I re-read them as an adult and thought SS should be called on some of the stories )
There's a reason they're KIDS books. Adults tend to over analyze and hyperventilate over things!

[moondog]

I'm a great fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder too as are my kids but they are clever enough to realise it is not a dastardly trick to make them tackle locust plagues and churn butter.

[Sukebind]

I loved the school stories and my DDs will probably read them when they are a bit older. I have left the Far Away Tree and some others on the shelf and I expect they will try them at some point. I loved them but when I did start reading them aloud to my elder DD she did not like all the slapping, shouting, pinching and anger that went on - she doesn't like books with any mild peril or confrontation at all (which can be a bit frustrating).
I haven't bothered with any of EB's lesser known books as they tend to be a lot about misdeeds and punishments. I remember one where a girl saw some boys lighting a fire in a field and told a man she thought was the farmer - he was really a pixie or something and sent her to the Land of Tattle-Tales where she had to stay til she learned not to tell tales. So... boys setting stuff alight on private property is fine whereas girls going to an adult with something worrying them are kidnapped and punished.

[viperslast]

I just can't see how this argument works? So many posters saying they read them and they are sexist etc and that they are not suitable. But you read them and you grew up to know the views are not appropriate in this day and age I doubt your parents sat and dissected the attitudes with you. You learn from more than just a few of the books you read and it is actually positive to have views to challenge and prompt thinking at any age.

Fwiw I didn't realise until I was in my 30s that the narnia books were about religion - and I was shocked. However in my early teens I was able to challenge the family stand on religion, think through and formulate my own argument and make a valid choice (even though I loved singing in the choir ). I suspect that, on some level, the books prompted me to think and challenge something that I probably would have just blindly accepted because it was just the way our family did things!

[veryconfusedatthemoment]

DS and I read FF - and I always correct the sexism :) He's used to me now banging on about how women are equal. Pity his dad (my ex) continues to be so sexist :(

[valiumredhead]

Viper- I realised late too about the Narnia books, it was only when I was reading them to ds that I saw the book with fresh eyes.

[jamdonut]

I used to devour Enid Blyton books (back in the 70's) I read an AWFUL lot of them,including all the Secret Seven , Famous 5, Six, Malory Towers, Faraway Tree and Wishing Chair stories to mention a few.

Somehow, I knew,even then, that the children in the stories were a bit snobby and privileged,but that did not stop me from enjoying them.

My favourite book, which I re-read several times, was Hollow Tree House, about a "poor" girl living with her wicked step-mother,who, with the help of a friend, ran away from home to live in a hollow tree stump in a nearby wood where she had the best home she had ever known.

I used to be full of indignation at the step-mother who refused to sign a permission slip for the girl to go on a school day-trip to the seaside. She had never been to the seaside before, and yet with the help of the friend (and a teacher, I think) she managed to get to go with lots of subterfuge! It was very sad when her hiding place was found and she had to go back to the house where she wasn't loved. It had a happy ending though!

I loved that story so much!!

My own children, partcularly my DD and DS2 both also loved the Faraway Tree and Wishing Chair stories.

I think that children realise that the values are of a different age, so it doesn't make a lot of difference to them. They know things are not like that now.

[campion]

Greater writers than Enid Blyton had views which we now find unacceptable but we haven't banned them, thank goodness.

I ,too, loved all the EB boarding school ones. I had no wish at all to go to BS but loved the descriptions of the midnight feasts - nestles milk, tinned peaches, potted meat and ginger beer. I hate tinned peaches but thought it sounded fun (sheltered childhood obv). And some of the friendship storylines had a ring of truth.

[Justforlaughs]

I loved EB as a child and was really sad that my DD didn't share my taste in books at all. Not just EB, but all the other authors I loved. Laura Ingalls Wilder, LM Baum, CS Lewis, Tolkein etc, etc. (who knew that Lord of the Rings was about religion, as well as Narnia?) Read them or don't is a personal choice, as is whether you read the Bible, the Koran or Harry Potter. Do I want my DCs growing up to think that EB characters are great role models - probably not, but I could say the same about Tracey Beaker, Horrid Henry etc. Just because a book/ author is "modern" doesn't make it any better than an old one. Just one other point, leave the books alone, don't update them, not EB, not Agatha Christie, not Jane Austin, if you want to write a book - write one!

[jamdonut]

I just looked Hollow Tree House up...I loved that book so much, but I had forgotten it was about a brother and sister living with their horrid Aunt and Uncle!!! Ah well...It just brought back memories. I still loved it!

[jamdonut]

pictures.abebooks.com/KENWORTHYBOOKS/1368205173.jpg

The book cover as I remember it!

[Peelie69]

If you are asking the question then it's probably fine...does make for interesting discussions about 'the olden days'. Love that phrase! I choke on one of the Peppa Pig stories.....'it is not the winning that counts but the taking part'. Ummmm......that will see you through life then.

[Justforlaughs]

Osmiornica Trying to remember what my own children liked reading at that age, Roman Mysteries by someone Lawrence, Jack Stalwart, Michael Morpurgo, Dick King Smith, Philip Ardagh(??).

[KittyShcherbatskaya]

I'm not so sure about the "well everyone had those views back then" argument. The Swallows and Amazons manage to befriend working class children without patronizing them. The Narnia books are actively anti-bullying. The Borrowers champions diversity. I think EB was a bit nasty even in her time.

[Justforlaughs]

Oooh yeah, Swallows and Amazons, had forgotten about those! Why does everyone remember one book from an author, such as Swallows and Amazons or The Wizard of Oz, or Little House on the Prairie etc without the rest of the series though? It was the same with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - at least until the films came out, more people have woken up to the fact that there is a series of books - even if they have missed half of them out!

[FreudiansSlipper]

I had Noddy books when I was young I liked those but I did not like the famous five it for some reason annoyed me

There is theme through her books of them and us, them being not white and/or not middle class, not quite so good and us middle class though occasionally the not quite so good people do well

There are plenty of other books I would prefer ds to read without having to constantly explain that attitudes have moved in, if it was not so prevalent in her books it may not matter so much

[Turniptwirl]

Enid Blyton had many faults but some of her stories are wonderful and I remember adoring them as a child (Malory towers and the adventurous four in particular, as well as done of the x of adventure books). I did harbour a longing to go to boarding school for many years, but I'm certainly not racist, a snob, sexist or any of the other things the books are criticised for.

You're not letting the books raise your children. Kids who read a variety of things (and watch and experience as well) will be able to make their own judgements. I wouldn't turn them into a lecture on why we don't have those attitudes anymore but just say they were written a long time ago and some people thought differently to how we think now. As long as you've done your job as a parent to any decent standard, books won't turn your child into a racist, sexist snobbish bigot!

[AllabouttheE]

Sorry not read whole thread

Just wait till school when the books they have to read are 30 years old and complexly sexist and ageist.

[Turniptwirl]

Ahh I loved the hollow tree house!!!

[howrudeforme]

I liked EB when I was v. young - Malory Towers - but I immediated noted how a character called Carlotta was treated and the general bullying attitudes. Didn't turn me into a racist or think I'm above anyone is fat because they were portrayed as lazy.

I've given them to my 7 year old but he finds the books sluggish and boring. But if he didn't I'd give him as many as he wanted.

She was a reportedly nasty time in a different era.

[Justforlaughs]

I really am going to have dig them all out and reread them aren't I?
I think Mr Galliano's Circus had to be my favourite set! Well, either that or The RubaDub Mystery set, or how about The Secret Island or ....
I know - The Treasure Hunters - that was great!

[MamaMary]

Tried to re-read some St Clare's books recently and couldn't get over how poorly written they are.

But I loved them as a child and read them all - St Clare's, Malory Towers, Famous Five, Secret Seven, Five Find-Outers and some of the Faraway Tree series. As a child I recognised that they weren't well-written, compared to say Roald Dahl books, but I still enjoyed the stories of children solving mysteries etc.

I am glad I was given the freedom by my parents to read whatever I wanted. I read EB and (a bit later) Sweet Valley Twins rubbish but I also read children's classics such as Narnia, Railway Children, Noel Streatfield, Tom's midnight garden, The Secret Garden etc. I went on to study English lit at uni :)