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?

I’m lucky enough to have a 1st edition of Five on a Treasure Island, and he’s definitely called Timmy/Timothy.

It depends on their age, I think. When they were three, I used to change things I found super-objectionable (partly because it made me feel better after a long, difficult, frustrating day of toddler childcare - like a little assertion of will). They were too young to have the discussion, and too young to understand why Mummy was suddenly telling the story through gritted teeth.

When they got older, and could read the words themselves, that was when we had the conversations.

Some damage was already done, though - as I realised when DD told me it was Daddy who made the money for our family. In fact I was working more and earning three times as much, which she was surprised to hear. Thanks for that, Farmer Alfalfa

So strange. My edition is 2019 and it’s a slap!

“There came the sound of four stinging slaps and Gwedoline squealed with pain. Darrell’s hand was strong and hard and she had slapped with all her might…”

they must have changed it back!

I think @RubyEspadrilles answers the question well. But I was born in 1973, and lived in a mono-cultural village, and can still remember being horrified by the descriptions of the man. They were horrendously racist - and I can still remember them, nearly half a century later. I have first editions of these books - and they are about the only books I refused to let my dc read until they were old enough to understand, and place the racism in context.

The Story of the Amulet (obviously not Enid Blyton) should be read with caution too. Horribly anti-Semitic.

I think that it was two separate incidents. Darrell slaps Gwendolyn in First Term, and then shakes a younger child (Alicia’s cousin, maybe?) in Upper Fourth.

That’s very sapphic erotic sounding

Hard disagree. It’s the accurate historical details like “old fashioned” names and older currencies which make the magic and help children imagine what it was like being in a boarding school at that time. When I read Mallory Towers I loved it because it was obviously from a different era and wasn’t trying to be Grange Hill by the sea.

I think I would also have realised that they wouldn’t have had pounds in those days, in the same way that Daryl and Felicity aren’t banging on about Mr Beast and Ariana Grande and checking out Gwen’s tic tok videos. So it actually detracts from the believability to make it a hotch potch.

In the BBC series of Mallory Towers (which my daughter refused to watch, it was like sodding Katie morag all over again) the slap still happened- it was the title
of a whole episode.

[Edited to add I do agree with removing obviously offensive racism and liked the BBC’s diverse cast for the girls]

Which would perhaps help society.

Perhaps they should upgrade it to being threatened with a knife and then being allowed to carry on regardless until someone is stabbed.

Let's be honest, we might say things a bit nicer but actually there's some real savagery out there.

👀👀🧐What the what now?

Timmy was called Timothy but Timmy is just a short version

I think he was always called Timmy/Timothy, are you perhaps thinking of the dog in the DamBusters film, who was a black labrador with a racial slur as its name?

there was an N word dog in The Children of Kidillin but not in famous 5. The well known dog called N word was Guy Gibson's dog in the film the Dambusters.

I contemplated that for my 4 year old who wanted the Faraway Tree (my favourite as kid) but she will absolutely know I've done that when she reads them for herself. And DH will likely change different bits or the same bits to different things.

That's the main reason I went for the updated ones over the originals, which I still have. I figure I can give her the originals when she's older and explain why they're different.

It annoys me when things are modernised in books. I liked reading how children behaved and their lives in ‘the ‘olden days’ especially upper class children who had maids and so on.

I agree with this. By the time they’re reading Enid Blyton, most children will be reading them alone, and they don’t always make it obvious that some of the attitudes are not ok. There’s also quite a lot of fat-shaming and appearance-shaming, and quite often the unpleasant children are described as spotty - I’d rather my kids didn’t absorb that kind of thinking.

Our neighbours regularly tell me, while with DD, that we're so LUCKY to have a man like DH who works so hard to allow us to live here and have the life we do.

I work from home and, while currently part time, full time I'd earn more than him. It's everywhere still, the casual sexism. I have regularly told DD that mummy works too, she can work doing whatever she wants, all that.

She has the updated versions at the moment but I fully intend to let her have the originals when she can understand the fact it's what is was like then, and things are better now except for people like the old men that live either side of us.

To be fair, I don’t personally have any great strength of view against keeping things like the names and currency as they were originally. Perhaps they do add something. But I broadly suspect that the publishers realised that sales of the books were declining in recent decades and that that was because whilst the average adult MN woman might think the historical details make the books magical, a lot of children found them old-fashioned and were reluctant to read them and therefore increase sales, and that those decisions didn’t run much deeper than that.

I agree. Rewriting history with respect to inclusion for women, disabled people, PoC, gay people etc risks minimising the very real struggles people had.

I saw a supposedly historical drama (cannot think of the name, it was about malicious letters) set in the early 20th century featuring a black judge. It minimises the exclusion black people faced to suggest this was a run of the mill occurrence when in reality there were no black judges at that time.

(Best to ditch the N word though, I wouldn't want kids repeating it and not understanding the level of offence and hurt they'd cause).

Also, is the thinking behind these fripperies that as long as we get rid of nasty names. the behaviour behind them also disappears ?

It's a little unclear what exactly is being glossed over here.

😱

I think this was the Dam Busters (and that’s what the dog was called in real life 😮)

I agree with this too, it’s Debatable that the child using the slur would also be harmed by getting into serious trouble for innocently using a word they read in a library book

At the same time, it helps to know some history. For all the Islamaphobia (for example) why was Elizabethan England busy (trying to) making alliances with the Ottomans and why was there a mosque in 16th century London ?

I’ve still got the originals, from when I was a child, and they have been read by my kids, grandkids, and currently waiting for my GGD to read. 😊

They wouldn’t like Little Black Sambo goes Fox Hunting. As seen in a National trust property a while ago.

I saw an article today saying that Janet and John books have been given a label warning too at a museum in Birmingham.

I wonder what we read in books today that will be banned in the next generations view as being very unsuitable.