to feel uneasy about my son reading Enid Blyton books

[frances5]

My son wants me to read him a book called the "Wishing Chair", I have read two chapters of it and it has a pixie in it called "Chinky". To make it worst the drawing of "Chinky" shows an elf like creature with slitted eyes. However I think my son is totally and utter oblivous to this.

Admitally Enid Blyton lived 50 years ago when people didn't know better. But do you think I am making a mistake letting my son enjoy this book? He is even trying to read it himself that he is so desperate to know what happens next.

When my son chose this book I had no idea that it had a pixie in it called "Chinky" other wise I would have diverted him towards something like Ronald Dahl.

Well I am off to bed, My bed time reading tonight is a book about Tourettes

I'm with Rosa. I want to know what on earth people deem could possibly be wrong with Micheal Morpurgo. Micheal Morpurgo FGS! Now I've heard it all.

BTW for the record my ds started reading the Famous Five after buying one of the books at a boot fair with his own money. It was the first proper chapter book he read and he was so proud of himself. He went on to read another couple then got bored and moved on to Lemony Snickett.

Whatever gets them reading is OK by me and I have better things to do with my time than banning Enid bloody Blyton. Talk about control freaks.

Spider this is a very long boring fighty thread but I have read it all and I do want to reassure you that no-one but no-one has suggested that EB should be banned. Boiled yes, but not banned. I did say I was glad she wasn't in my dc's school library. Perhaps that is what is causing the confusion.

No-one suggested that Morpurgo should be banned or boiled. Someone did make a jokey reference to MM - a joke which sailed over most people's heads because everyone was too busy getting very very het up.

BAN HER! BURN BOOKS

I just knew you'd all end up bestest friends.

morning pointydog. Best friends bah

No one said anything bad about MM.

LOL Custy, I've got a CLBB you can have for your pyre...

hello, awen

yes, no one said anything bad about Morpurgo. Gor blimey, let's nip that one in the bud

I just loved the Enid Blyton/Mallory Towers/Pullien-Thompson books.

Even as a small child (8?) I was very aware of the class references, and that by her criteria I was 'rough'. It really started to bother me as I grew older and I felt that I was somehow having a deprived childhood because my life did not parallel that of the Famous Five. Never stopped me saving my pocket-money for another EB book though, and I always asked for them at Christmas

My DD is called 'Mallory' just like the books. Can you tell I am a fan

Hmmm...probably too late for me to respond to veraducksworth. But anyway, isn't it funny how sometimes when a poster responds to your post, they validate the exact point you were making? Vera, obviously reading comprehension is not your forte if you couldn't see I was being sarcastic. EB is just your speed.

Hey Lentils, go gently eh?

Do you know that when Enid Blyton had difficulty conceiving when she was newly married, so had some investigation done and they found that her reproductive organs had stopped developing when she was 13!

Can't remember whether she had any fertility treatment (such as it was in those days) but she did have 2 daughters in due course.

Yes her books are racist and snobby, her plots curiously predictable and her prose style sometimes cliched and humourless to the point of nausea. But at least her grammar, syntax and spelling are always correct. I read her voraciously as a child, with the enthusiasm I now reserve for Su Do-ku.

Pedant that I am, I shall correct you elasticwoman. ...I have just finished reading "Smugglers' Top" to my dd1 and was iritated by a grammatical error therein:
"Marybelle pawed at him in delight, just as if she was a dog!"

dd loves Enid Blyton, as I did when I was a child. I do change some of the words though as I don't want dd using them and people taking the piss, so I change words like "queer" to "odd".

But for me they are full of magical things such as wishing chairs and pixies and enchanted trees etc. It opens up a child's imagination! I find the Felicity Wishes books much more offensive for their view that all girls should have long hair, be concerned with fashion and not have one ounce of intelligence.

"I find the Felicity Wishes books much more offensive for their view that all girls should have long hair, be concerned with fashion and not have one ounce of intelligence"

LOL. me too.

Absolutely right, Balls, I stand corrected.

By the way, the OP says that 50 years ago, "people didn't know any better." 50 years ago is only shortly after the enormous shock of the Holocaust was discovered, so there was perhaps less excuse for racism then, than at any other time in history.

Anybody ever notice any anti-semitism in EB's oevre?

kimi,

Sorry I haven't replied. I've been busy this weekend. We been picking strawberries, making jam, going to church and this afternoon we went to the circus.

I've decided to let my son continue with Enid Blyton. He is five and half years old and I really proud that he is attempting to read it on his own. He is desperate to find out what happens next and is hooked.

Even if Enid Blyton is trashy and probably about the reading level of the Sun, is still quite hard for a five year old.

Do you think that Oxford Reading Tree books that my son has rejected in favour of Enid Blyton are better written?

Coming late to this interesting thread, I think I'm a lax parent because I don't put that many constraints on what my children read.

AFAIC the fact that DS is reading and sees it as a positive, fun thing to do at the age of 8, is great. Having said that he's never expressed the remotest interest in Enid Blyton. Is it more of a girl thing? DD is five so only learning to read atm, perhaps she'll want the Blyton books. If she does, I won't be buying them for her, but I won't be stopping her reading them either, they're crap but so waht, I sometimes let her eat crisps and shite as well. As with eating or watching TV, so with books, I don't expect every single thing my children ever consume to be improving.

I do remember reading them as a child and consciously suspending disbelief about the attitudes and language. Words like "wizard" and "ginger beer" instantly sent out the message that these kids were not like me, I knew they weren't, and I could cope with it. Just as I could cope with the fact that the kids in the Phoenix and the Carpet had maids and wore pinnafores and bloomers. I think children have some kind of strange ability to stand back and distance themselves and filter out the crap, while all the time subliminally recognising it is crap, because it doesn't tally with what they see going on around them in their own lives.

I think that comparing Enid Blyton to the horrors of the holocaust is a little unfair.

What ever you think of her as a writer she certainly wasn't a nazi.

I haven't got time to read the whole thread, but has anyone said anything about Oliver Twist or Shakespeare? If you object to anything in Enid Blyton then surely you've got to say that Oliver Twist (or the musical version) and The Merchant of Venice are just as bad. OK so The Merchant of Venice is not bedtime reading, something more likely to be read in school when there can be a discussion about anti semitism, but would you stop your children from seeing Oliver!?

why whats wrong with oliver?

its hthe poor kids innit? its the rags - you call them chavs doncha?

Why would you stop your kid from seeing Oliver?

Your average child isn't even going to realise that Fagin is supposed to be Jewish. I never did until I read the book.

Mind you, I don't think I could cope with sitting through Lionel Bart's soundtrack...

Is his name Lionel Bart? Or am I confused?

And that awful saccharine kid who played him with a posh voice...