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?

[Alexandrite]

Yes we are allowed to read about bullying, but I think people are commenting on the fact that the characters that EB presents as being the good characters, are actually pretty vile and bullying to the characters she presents as being bad characters. Normally bullies are seen as the bad characters in a story. I still read them to my daughter as i think they are an enjoyable read, but I do mention to her how awful I think they are being!

[valiumredhead]

Alex- but that's good isn't it, good discussion material?

[TheBigJessie]

squoosh the problem was that the characters were presented as kind and decent while being well-spoken vicious little madams!

[squoosh]

Did anyone see the BBC 4 biopic where EB was played by Helena Bonham Carter? Twas very good.

[TheBigJessie]

Bullying is presented as the moral course of action, really.

[C0ffeeN0biscuit]

I read them to my son but I edit and re-jig as I go along where necessary. My daughter read the whytleaf series which I hated though, so we discussed how self-satisfied they all were and how sexist the times were. 'mummy was delicate and wore beautiful gloves. Daddy was so sensible and clever'. I was reading something to my son where Julian's mother was dying and his intelligent father saved the day by inventing a new cure.

There was one set in a mountain in Africa (?) an old 1970s copy pulled off a shelf from my old bedroom. It was shocking. The racism and the lack of respect for non british beliefs and ways of life.

[valiumredhead]

Yes squoosh I saw that, explains a lot

[valiumredhead]

Coffee-that was life in the 70's, it was shocking, there was a paint called n*** brown ffs, I mean I can't even begin to imagine living in a society where that was acceptable but it was. Do I want to censor all the books from that time, no way, people should know how crap it was and how far we've moved on. I want my ds to be outraged when he reads books like that, and thankfully he is.

[5Foot5]

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.

Well yes it was. But IIRC the protaginists didn't then have a good laugh at her expense. They all felt bad about it and commented on how they didn't feel very good about what they had done.

[valiumredhead]

I can't actually remember the bullies getting away with anything really,I always remember them as getting their comeuppance eventually. Mind you, not read them for years. I seriously feel like having a re read of Mallory Towers now

[C0ffeeN0biscuit]

Yes, and the first chapter of Amelia Jane is vile too. They gang up on her and exclude her but they seem to believe it's justified because of some fault they perceive in her. Horrible. I had an old copy, 60 years old maybe, I was going to send it to my God Daughter who is called Amelia but I had a quick read and thought, no way.

Bullying in books is ok so long as it is presented as wrong, but bullying in books presented as a favour, as though it were character building, and in the person's own good to be bullied................ no thanks.

[TheBigJessie]

The emphasis on how one must never "tell tales" is certainly something to discuss with children, too.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

I don't think it's true to say everyone was just sexist 'back then' and EB is a straightforward representation of this, though - look at Bronte's 'Shirley' where the main characters complain about women never being taken seriously or allowed to do anything fun or challenging, or Maggie Tulliver's struggle for education which George Eliot obvuiously recognizes and thinks is a terrible shame... not everyone in the 60s was a nasty racist bully - just the people EB liked to write about!

[curlew]

I suspect that many of the modern children enjoying these books are enjoying them because their parents are enjoying reading them aloud so much. And because their parents are so pleased that they are reading them. I honestly think there is a nostalgia black hole that people fall into and lose all their critical faculties. This has happened to me over many things I hoped my children would enjoy, from bread and milk to Billy Connelly.

[curlew]

"I can't actually remember the bullies getting away with anything really,I always remember them as getting their comeuppance eventually."

An individual child cast as "The Bully" did. When the group bullied( "shut up Gwendoline, Gwendoline shut up" ) springs to mind- it was always for the victim's own good.

[squoosh]

I think if a child is showing an interest in reading they should be left to read whatever they want. Nothing more off putting for a 7 year old than to be told which books are 'good' for them.

EB may be a load of old tosh but she did plant the seed for a lifetime of avid reading in a lot of young minds.

[valiumredhead]

The original- of course not everyone was but I listen to my fil talk about 'no dogs no Irish' signs in B and B's and how he was discriminated against when he first came over from Ireland and how my mother wasn't allowed to date an Asian man and how much things have changed for the better, do I do think EB's books represent what it was like then.

[valiumredhead]

Curlew-why were they telling her to shut up I can't remember.

[valiumredhead]

I agree squoosh.

[PaperSeagull]

There is a lot to be concerned about in EB's books, but I remember reading and enjoying them. Later editions remove a lot of the overt racist language (a change that is fine by me). I do think it's silly to rename the characters, Rick for Dick or whatever.

I remember my mother reading one of E. Nesbit's books to me and explicitly pointing out that though one character says the "n" word it was an absolutely unacceptable word to use. It didn't stop me from loving those books, just broadened my outlook a bit to be made aware of the way that language and attitudes change over time. I wonder which words we use today without thinking twice will be considered utterly reprehensible a few decades hence.

I guess the question is whether EB's books have anything of value that compensates for the racism, sexism, classism, etc. They are badly written and formulaic, but also entertaining and quite gripping for children. Does their entertainment value outweigh their negatives?

[EeTraceyluv]

That's a good point - they are horribly unputdownable. My eldest dd now 24 has recently bought the entire st clares and malory towers series, and I borrowed a couple recently. I just couldn't stop reading them when I started. Awful but gripping. I loved the 'secret of...' books too. The one where they fly away in a plane that prince paul just happens to own to the secret mountain. For months afterwards, I would lie in bed pretending I was in that plane - as I recall, they had special bed type seats that they could recline in. Although they also had the token rough child - mafumo, who was black
with terribly white teeth...

[ZZZenagain]

Is there much of value in them?I really don't know. I enjoyed reading them, my dd enjoyed reading the Famous Five and Secret Seven books but when I read one to her as a bedtime story, it seemed to me very long-winded and rambling in parts. As an adult, I found that particular (Secret Seven) book quite boring, perhaps just in comparison to more modern children's literature.

[lottieandmia]

Enid Blyton books may have been written a long time ago and I read them too and do not consider myself to be racist or bigoted. But really she is not much of a writer and there are better things to encourage your child to read imo.

[ipadquietly]

At my school (in 1965!) Enid Blyton books were banned.

[IHaveA]

Enid Blyton wrote fantastic books that have really stood the test of time. Her attitudes were a little dubious but I haven't found anything offensive in any of the many books of hers that I have read recently. There are plenty of obnoxious characters which all the kids love to hear about but I can't remember reading anything that would promote sexism or racism.

Surely the fact that some of the boys in the books were sexist doesn't mean the books themselves were sexist. There are loads of children's stories with lots of sexism in them. Are Cinderella and Peter Pan sexist?

I have spent hours and hours reading to school kids and I think Enid Blyton books are the most well liked. Her short and snappy popular rewards series books are brill for kindergarten kids.