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AIBU?

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Original poster

to read Enid Blyton with caution?

243 replies

catandbabyequalschaos · 15/10/2013 14:11

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?

OP posts:
curlew · 18/10/2013 09:57

I was actually thinking about the girl who 'a dad was the vulgar self made man- was it Jo?

ohmymimi · 18/10/2013 10:06

Eldest - Halloween Envy I was obviously a bit of a late developer!

Retropear · 18/10/2013 10:18

Gazz you want to read E Nesbit's books then.Far more classism but they and EB make fab teaching points imvho.

I got loads of discussion points out of 5 Children and It with my 3. Wouldn't dream of not letting them read them though.

TheBigJessie · 18/10/2013 10:23

I think the most difficult thing about EB is the all pervasive snobbery. That a local accent is synonymous with actual low intelligence, rather than meaning one does not have a wireless on which to listen to RP.

Very much like our modern hatred towards "chavs".

It's a constant through her books, and I think I did absorb it for a while unquestioningly. She's hardly the only author guilty of snobbery, of course.

I am very conflicted about it all, because I loved Enid Blyton from 6-10 and she did make me a confident, prolific reader. But do her books also make one more vulnerable to "feckless lower classes" rhetoric? I fear they do. I think there's always going to be a part of me that sees Other Poor People with City Accents the way Enid did!

Good thing I did at least have an epiphany about it all due to one chapter in one book, otherwise I might be a Daily Mail reader now!

noddingoff · 18/10/2013 11:10

I liked pony books: Ruby Ferguson's "Jill" series, Patricia Leitch's "Jinny" series, Monica Dickens' Follyfoot Farm books and K.M Peyton's Fly by Night books. The protagonists in these aren't spoilt snobbish brats.
I liked the Swallons and Amazons books but I don't think we ever had an Enid Blyton book in the house- I think my mum disliked them growing up so she never bought them for me.

momb · 18/10/2013 11:31

My YD, 9, is just really getting into her stride as an independent reader and is racing through The faraway tree, wishing chair and secret sevens (we're listening to SS in the car on CD too (sigh).
She is very aware that they are dated, that the children are not very nice sometimes, and that they judge people (and creatures) by criteria which we just don't use any more. We have had some great discussions engendered by these books.
My question though: what is there at a similar reading level with the same type of fantasy/adventure/excitement? I'll happily buy those instead if she'll enjoy them as much.

Jengnr · 18/10/2013 11:36

I think there was a a girl in St Clare's who 'even sometimes dropped her h's' :)

squoosh · 18/10/2013 11:40

The only EB series I didn't have much time for was The Secret Seven...................I'm ashamed to admit why.............because they only went to the local day school, I looked down on them because they weren't spiffingly middle class enough to go to boarding school! Oh Enid, you made a snob of me! Grin

TheBigJessie · 18/10/2013 11:45

curlew yep, that's Jo and her disastrous year at Malory Towers. The rest of the parents genteelly shuddered at him, and his braying, didn't they?

There's also the girl at St Clare's who annoyed everyone by using "oughtn't". It turned out her mother used to clean for the head-girl's family, before they got money.

That was Enid being nice to working class people with money!

Jengnr · 18/10/2013 11:48

She didn't wash her neck either Jessie :)

Working class scrubbers!

squoosh · 18/10/2013 11:49

There was someone whose father was aw'fly new money, She was brash, had an over developed bosom and even wore lipstick.

TheBigJessie · 18/10/2013 11:52

Working classes, eh?

I'm a bit uncertain about age-groups, but I remember Susan Cooper's books fondly, as well as Trebizon school books. Would second Patricia Leitch!

Penelope Lively, too.

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 18/10/2013 12:11

Jessie - Not 'oughtn't' - 'didn't ought'!

Jo Jones terrible father makes Miss Grayling shudder and be very unprofessional in slagging him off to other parents, doesn't he?

TheBigJessie · 18/10/2013 12:34

SteamingNit that was it! Didn't ought!

I'd also forgotten the scene where the headmistress talks about Jo's father to Darrell's parents. My lord. That's dreadful behaviour.

curlew · 18/10/2013 12:37

I also hate the way they plan bullying "for the victim's own good. Gwendoline was the butt of one of those experiments. And Sadie.

Viviennemary · 18/10/2013 12:43

I was a great Enid Blyton fan. And as for George wanting to be a boy. I thought she could have short hair climb trees and so on without being a boy so I didn't really understand the issue at all.

curlew · 18/10/2013 12:46

You didn't notice the "almost as good as a boy" comments, then?

Viviennemary · 18/10/2013 12:54

I just thought it was in George's own head. No adult ever said that as far as I remember. So I would have thought it was just Julilan being a pain. As much as Anne being a silly cry baby was just in her own head. It was her personality and not her sex.

Alexandrite · 18/10/2013 13:01

One of the worst episodes of planned bullying in MT I remember was in the book where Darrell wrote a panto. Maureen I think it was had been boasting about being good at dress design, writing music etc, so they asked her to provide a sample of each and planned to roar with laughter at it all. They do this and she runs out of the room. Really nasty. They are also really horrible to Catherine "St Catherine" just because she is kind and always tries to help people.

valiumredhead · 18/10/2013 13:03

At the time it was written women weren't seen as equal to men. She's echoing the general feeling of the time through her writing.

If an author churned out stuff like that now it would be totally unacceptable but these books were written way back.

Should we discourage people from reading
Pride and Prejudice as it's all geared towards getting everyone paired off and living happily ever after or see it as a product of its time?

The whole point of reading imo is that you form your own opinion and agree or disagree with the book, isn't that why book clubs are so popular? apart from wine and gossip

Alexandrite · 18/10/2013 13:03

I went to a girls' grammar school in the 80s and I do actually remember two episodes where practically the whole class ganged up on someone for being a bit different /square. In the first instance it was not long after we started the first year there and the girl left soon afterwards. So perhaps it is realistic!

TheBigJessie · 18/10/2013 13:05

Yes, everyone had to be put in their place by humiliation. There's some dreadful stuff in St Clare's, as well.

squoosh · 18/10/2013 13:07

If we're only supposed to read books with kind and decent characters then please count me out!

valiumredhead · 18/10/2013 13:09

Wrt the bullying, are we not allowed to even read about bullying now? Why, in case we 'catch it?' I used to read those books and it made me feel a bit better about the awful time I was having at school at the time. While it was bad it wasn't quite as bad as EB books.

valiumredhead · 18/10/2013 13:10

Certainly realistic ime Alex unfortunately.