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?

Ooh, thanks. I'm going to listen to this now.

Funny I remembered them in a conversation last week about ice cream stall and Connie asking for Sardine icecream

And Dame Washalot

I didn't read them as a child but I read one to DD that she was given as a gift and I did not enjoy it

I loved them as a child. My friend told me she had an old faraway tree in her garden. I believed her, climbed it, got stuck and had to be rescued by her dad, the vicar.

I think I need to re-read.

What a disappointment. You must have been gutted.

Honestly so trippy but DS loved them at age 6. Over time i got used to them and appreciated the imaginative magical qualities.

I still believed her because she told me it was a dead one. :gullible:

Well you never know, she may have been telling the truth after all.

I remember these books! I had a crush on Moonface. Don’t ask me to explain it because I can’t - unlike my crush on the drawings of Loki in the Dorling Kindersley illustrated mythology book, it is totally inexplicable.

Loved these as a child . Don't remember much now apart from the slippery slip in the middle of the tree - and some cakes with honey in the middle.

YABU.

I loved these and most of Enid Blyton's stories as a child. And so does my DD7. Perhaps even more so. She thinks Saucepan Man and Watzisname are hilarious!

She's particularly into all the short-story compilations at the moment. She seems to love the old-fashioned innocence and whimsy ❤️

Don't understand what's so 'insane' about them??

don't know if its been said as its pages of comments but they turned all books in to a series its on YouTube.
ive been rewatching the last few days(alone not with kids)

only 10-15 mins a story/episode but im enjoying it(im43 btw)

side note there's hundreds on 80s/90s shows on there

ive just finished poddington peas and the wuzzles

but back to your original post

imagine the mother getting a knock on the door by a fairy, deaf saucepan man and a moon face man that her children are stuck in another magical land that has blown to wherever and i don't know when they are coming back

that's if they know where the kids live

in a few episodes they get stuck or arrested

or in the wishing chair
sorry miss your kids have fallen to their death off a flying settee chair

I loved them as a child and enjoyed reading them to my dc. The writing isn't great but my god Blyton had some imagination!

I used to love those books. Every chapter was a new land. Anyone remember the Land of Dame Slap's school at the top of the tree? She would ask questions like 'Why did the blackboard?' They always had to escape before the land swung away from the top of the tree. Moon Face lived in a round room with a slippery slip with cushions to go down on and he would give them Pop Biscuits that exploded in your mouth! Dame Washalot wouid throw dirty water on people in the tree. There was a squirrel at the bottom of the slippery slip who collected the cushions and tied them to a rope to be pulled back up. Brilliant! What an imagination she had. Thanks for the nostalgia OP.

Indigoskies In more recent editions Dame slap was changed to Dame Snap, instead of slapping the children she scolded them severely.

Do you have a link? Would love to listen!

I didn't read Blyton as a child - maybe some famous five - someone gave DD Far Away Trilogy as a gift. I found them excruciating - how horrible they all were to Connie and general moralising and lack of empathy. However amazingly imaganative and the world building was brilliant. DD loved them and is very dyslexic so I read to her for ages she aksed me to do Far Away tree trilogy three times. I balked/ cheated my way through a lot of the third read.

See I love how they treated Connie! She was a stuck up, spoilt little madam and their reaction was 100% Nope! Not doing that here! And if you do, no-one will like you!

Not a bad lesson for kids to learn, I reckon.

Oh yes. I still have my 'Tiptoes the Mischievous Kitten' in which the poor little soul is bereft at being so naughty and: "wishes my mother had spanked me more" (mother cat, but we all know what Enid meant) 😥

That is the kinkiest thing I’ve ever read on here, and I say this as someone whose DH admits to having had a childhood crush on Darrell ‘Slap-happy’ Rivers from the Malory Towers books.

I can kind of get the moon face crush. 😳 He has a certain something about him...

One of my favourite as a child and my son as the audio book versions for his yoto player and they are his favourite!

Loved Enid Blyton as a child. Love reading them to my DC and they adore them too. We've read Faraway and Wishing Chair series twice. All of secret seven, some malory towers, naughtiest girl and currently on famous five. I honestly still don't believe any children's author in all the decades since has come close to Enid Blyton for young kids.

Loved Enid as a child but the books are now sooooo dated. It's a shame as some of the concepts are lovely.