Enid Blyton - what's been edited out/changed??

[Distantview]

Have picked up a 2021 version of The Magic Faraway tree. I used to love this series as a child.

It has a disclaimer about being edited to meet modern standards.

Now I'm trying to work out what was in the original that would be offensive today - does anyone know?

What this poster says. It's all a learning moment about how things have changed.

As a child i was an avid reader of Enid Blyton. The famous five, the secret seven, the Five findouters, with Frederick Algernon Trotsville, AKA "Fatty"
I can confirm that I didnt grow up to a racist sexist homophobic fat shamer 😆

That's odd as I read these recently with DD (new versions not old) and the slap was def still there.

I found an old Enid Blyton bible stories one in a charity shop and gave it to DNephew (7) who’s not religious. He knows nothing about the bible apart from Easter and Christmas. Little heathen. I’m sure it needs updating and prob isn’t PC but I didn’t check it before giving it to his mum.

Quite. You’d think they were nazi propaganda the way people carry on.

Amazon sells it. Is the issue because he’s half brownie (what’s that?) and half human?

Racist terms as pp said should be removed.

In the mid 80s at my private girls convent we were told to marry well and not necessarily have to work if that were possible. Quite a few families were restauranteurs where the wife and even daughters as teens didn’t work, some did. Or the wife worked re admin side. We had childcare as one gcse subject.

If it makes you feel better, she slaps her in the tv programme and the stage show.

Well, so was I, but as a WC child, it was not pleasant, for example, to read passages where the WC Ern, Mr Goon’s nephew in the Five Find-Outers, is treated like a comic joke or pet, his manners and grammar corrected by the MC children, and everyone involved just accepting that Ern, who ‘knows his place’, naturally doesn’t have tea in the nursery/playroom with the other children, but down in the kitchen with the servants.

I can also imagine that it was unpleasant to be a black child encountering racist caricatures like Jojo, the angry, stupid, violent black manservant in The Island of Adventure, who is given to rolling his eyes and being superstitious about ghosts, and is effortlessly outwitted time and again by the children. Or the escaped black paratrooper in The Mountain of Adventure who talks about himself pityingly in the third person as a ‘poor n**r’.

Some things need changing, Agatha Christie had a book called ten little ni@@ers which was changed to 10 little Indians in American versions… it was then called And then there were none …. That was a good change. Some others are ridiculous like prudence to Pamela?! Jo to Joe … don’t agree with that personally

I don't think that was a good change.

What does she do instead of slap her now?

We've got the book I'm going to have to find it now!

I’ve got some of the books from the 50s and he was Timmy in those books but in the more modern books he’s Timothy.

So Dicks okay but Timmy had to change to Timothy???

I think I agree with this. Generally I am opposed to making changes to books, and it can be appropriate to retain these as they may help children with gaining an historical sense and understanding that certain items/phrases which were common at one time are no longer used now. Anyone who wants to find out what a shilling is can just ask or Google it.

But there is possibly a case for removing a few things which are highly likely to cause offence.

I don't know though why EB's books are fair game for changing and others aren't. Nobody has ever proposed 'improving' Mansfield Park by amending the heroine's name.

And not just adult literature: how about making amendments to say the Narnia books as well? There is sexism there - the stereotypically feminine women/girl characters are openly mocked whereas the heroines are praised for the extent to which they resemble boys. To paraphrase: '(Lucy) is as good as a man, or at any rate as good as a boy. Susan is just like any other grown up woman, she's not like Lucy'. Not to mention the racism - look at how the Calormenes are depicted.

Not true at all. I have a 2nd edition Treasure Island (first book) and a 1st edition Run Away (3rd book).

You're just trying to push a narrative that isn't true.

Big Ears is now called Mr Squeaks

@ItsGregg I loved Mr Pinkwhistle

Absurd

This is quite amusing because, as a corporate "career woman" currently on mat leave, all my conversations with similarly-situated friends are about how much we wish we could quit our jobs and that they should teach baby-handling skills in school!

Now to go find myself a pair of egg-beater earrings as my non-breadwinner husband won't be able to afford them

I thought she shook her. But other people are staying she still slaps her, so maybe it's gone back on. I don't think taking out the slap works; Darrell's temper, and her struggle to overcome it, is an important theme over the whole series. And a slap between children is hardly something that doesn't happen today. It's presented as wrong and is an opportunity for personal growth. If the shake is there I'm not sure why it's better than a slap.

This is on Amazon for less than £5

I don't think this argument stands up to a moment's scrutiny. They were massively popular for over four decades between decimalisation and the revisions. There are regular threads on here about women's fond memories of Malory Towers, and I'd bet less than 0.5% of those posters went to boarding school.

Harry Potter is the most successful children's book franchise and isn't remotely relatable to any of the kids reading it.

Books don't need to be relatable. They can transport us to another world.

As a pp has pointed out, it was a performing dog in one of the Mr Galliano’s Circus books.