AIBU - or are the Faraway Tree books utterly insane?

[BaleOfHay]

I've started reading these to DD5 at bedtime and they are making my head hurt. I'm all for a bit of magic (we've just finished the Worst Witch) and I loved Enid Blyton a a child (Famous 5) but the Faraway Tree makes me want to scream and throw it out of the window. Is it just me?

I absolutely loved them as a child. I still remember how much I wanted to be able to go down the Slippery Slip.

They were of their time where morals and manners mattered unlike today.

Yep! And have the rabbit fetch my pillow.

And eat pop biscuits and toffee shocks!

I also wanted a clock that came alive and ran around when it struck the hour, and a real walking and talking doll (who was rather contrary!).

They are totally insane, but I they were the books that made me love fantasy as a child. I moved on from these to classics like the Narnia Chronicles and The Hobbit. My lasting memories are of a weird school teacher that they tricked, Moonface saying "poo to you" and a place where you could order your favourite food in the word.

I really loved the Faraway Tree as a kid but read it myself. Don't think I could deal with reading that story to my daughter as an adult. A lot of kids fiction is great but insufferable from an adult POV.

Moomins is brilliant though! Amazing nuanced themes & characters that appeal to all ages.

If THIS isn’t snobbery, I don’t know what is.

Morals and manners still matter. But the very mid-20th century middle class English morals and manners in Blyton are a problem in many ways.

Im a bit confused by people criticising about morals and manners. Children should have morals and manners. Obviously some morals change throughout time but the basics remain the same.

Very strange

I loved them. And the wishing chair books. They are some of the books I remember most from childhood.

Absolutely loved these books as a child. Still have some of my Enid Blyton books from my childhood. I don't know why people feel the need to criticise her writing so much. Yes they were sexist, the boys having to do the gardening whilst the girls helped with housework and cooking, but that's what it was like back then. Girls did cookery and needlework at school whilst boys did woodwork and metalwork.

There's a free audiobook of them on YouTube with a young Kate Winslett reading them aloud!
DP plays it to DC on long car journeys.

I loved them as a child, now I find them surreal and bizarre! Was Enid on acid?!

They are of a different time though.more recent children's books are more topical sometimes .and there is a big difference.

I really, really loved them. They sparked something in me, something wonderful and exciting and thrilling. I remember roaming round the woods that backed onto our house looking and looking for a tree going 'wisha, wisha....'

The Land of Take What Your Want! where you actually GOT what you wanted! we didn't have much money or nice food in those days so I remember thinking how GLORIOUS just to be able to put as much syrup on a pudding as you wanted. Then there was the land they THOUGHT was the LoTWYW only it wasn't, and Jo got arrested and sent to prison!

For a 5/6 year old, they were genius stories, pitched exactly right, with exciting plots and conflicts written in language the child could read for itself.

I've read a LOT of books since then, to my children, to my playgroup children, and a great many of them are dreadful.

I loved these books when I read them as child. The writing style and some of the attitudes are problematic these days. The issue for me would be that if your child was old enough to understand that different times held different attitudes, they'd probably be too old to really love the stories.

I still like the Faraway Tree though. My original copy fell to pieces from too much reading, and my mum bought me another one.

Societal values have changed quite a lot since middle class england c. 70 years ago.

Lots of the themes and plots in Blyton are overtly moralistic and preach values many people are not on board with.

Absolutely the Faraway Tree books are insane, complete fantasy but it's what makes them great. I loved them as a child and as an adult rebought them for my kids, they aren't fussed but I still love them.

Moonface is still my favourite.

I loved The Enchanted Wood and the Faraway Tree when I was a kid. I've found old copies of these on WOB. Great memories (photos attached).

@soupfiend precisely

Me too. I'd fall asleep reading Thomas books they were so boring.

I absolutely loved the Faraway Tree when I was little, it was so exciting. I love travelling as an adult too, all those faraway lands to explore!

(They were a present - I think the reason I didn't read them as a child, despite devouring other Blytons, is that my mother also couldn't face them!)

I think those of you mentioning the fantasty genre have hit the nail on the head. I don't do fantasty. I like magic, but somehow grounded in the real world, if that makes any sense (the Worst Witch for example), but fantasy leaves me cold. I never liked Narnia as a child and Lord of the Rings/the Hobbit do not interest me one jot. Maybe I'm too boring. I even buy lottery tickets monthly just so that I can day drea about winning, I cound't justify the day dream if there was zero chance of winning!

Still - I'll read them for DD as clearly they are a wonderful memory for some of you. I just might need a stiff drink when I come downstairs to reset the madness!

I loved them as a child, gave read them to my sons, they love them and have read them themselves.

I really struggled with the Narnia books, I ADORED these as a child, read them over and over. Recently ploughed through The Magician's Nephew, the children were not engaged with it at all and the language was really difficult. None of us enjoyed it and haven't moved on through the series

Yabu- the Faraway Tree books were amazing!
Someone upthread commented on how it was sad that the mum wanted her “DC” out all day and to ask for nothing. That made me snort a bit, as that was normal childhood for me in the 70s / 80s! Running wild, tons of freedom, no money, no material expectations. Good things and bad things about that of course, but it meant we could relate to the idea of roaming the woods and finding adventure. The idea of take what you want for children now probably seems redundant now as children are surrounded by unlimited goodies.
I loved the “ Adventure” series too.

I used to love these but I sometimes felt they never went quite far enough. They are probably the reason I have quite a creative brain! I don’t think there were any other stories around like these .

It was Silky, Moonface and the bloody Saucepan Man that I loathed, even as a child who adored virtually all other Enid Blyton — the basic scenario of a magic tree whose topmost branches are visited by different magic countries is a good one, but the characters are either completely generic (you could switch the names of Jo, Bessie and Fanny around without changing the story in the slightest, other than Jo bossily thinking he has to ‘protect’ the girls) or the generic wrong’un child who gets reformed (Connie, Dick) or idiotic/ cantankerous (Angry Pixie (angry), Saucepan Man (comedy-deaf and stupid), Whatsisname (sleeps).

I always felt I should like it more than I did, as EB is clearly trying to convey that the children’s family is actually poor (they have to walk the five miles from the station, the mother wants to take in washing, the children do all the housework and grow food in the garden), rather than the UMC world of the Famous Five or Five-Find Outers, with their cooks and maids and deferential farmers’ wives and WC Ern being sent to have tea in the kitchen, but I think it’s a weirdly violent fictional universe. The kids get slapped at home for not doing their jobs properly, and there’s also a lot of punishment, smacking, scolding etc in the fantasy parts.

I think the recent reissues changed the children’s names and took out all the slaps.

All the slapping has been removed from recent editions.

My children all adored these books.

Loved them as a child. Used to dream about lands rotating. There is a film in the offing too.