Surprised to discover that the Enid Blytons I loved as a child are actually pretty badly written

[deaconblue]

I counted 4 "astonished" on one page the other night. The vocab is so limited, with so many repetitions of favourite words. However, ds is really enjoying the Faraway Tree so I guess the ideas matter more than the way in which a book is written.

I started reading the Castle of Adventure to my DD1 a few weeks ago, but the first chapter was so dull and dated we never carried on... Perhaps we should give it more of a chance! I still love the Famous Fives, although I try to edit and update the very dated dialogue a little when reading aloud.
IIRC we did enjoy the Faraway Tree series- not so full of long-gone 1940s language oddities as the others :)

Oh we are loving the Wishing Chair & Faraway Tree
Yes its dated, but I dint notice it being badly written TBH.

I've given DD some of my old Famous Five books and now she keeps banging on about how gypsies are evil. She won't believe me that they're not and keeps going on "well in Famous Five......."

I'm going to have to remove them I think. Was hoping a sensible conversation about changing attitudes would do it but no.

Yes, I'm reading them to DD and really the style is dreadful, but the content is fun and does it's job. You don't read Enid for her literary style!

I don't think it's so terrible to repeat words - reading as a young child, it is reassuring to come across familiar words being repeated. Obviously Enid Blyton is not some version of the Oxford Reading Tree where introducing and repeating words has a purpose, but I can appreciate it as a "learning curve" kind of vocabulary. Reading with some 5/6 yr olds yesterday, they were more able to grasp words like "help" or "where" when they were meeting them every other page. It makes the reading experience more comfortable for a child, I would think. Other authors would offer more challenging sentence structure and vocab but Blyton just tells an exciting or jolly story.

We weren't allowed Enid Blyton when we were kids for precisely the reason that they were so badly written. I have found that many modern kids books are even worse, though.

Of course they're dreadful, as well as being highly readable. That's always been the case, that's why libraries wouldn't stock them back in my childhood.

My dds like them now. as I did.

The portrayal of gypsies, working classes, foreigners etc is a bit different from being poorly written.
We do have ongoing discussion of how things have changed and how many older books are sexist racist classist etc. You have to get used to it if you're reading the classics (as well as the non-classic older books). Otherwise you'd be left with practically no literature from before 1980.

My dad wouldn't allow me to read Asterix or indeed any cartoons, but would happily read aloud to me out of the Famous Five. Idiot!

It's really interesting which books stand up to re-reading as an adult and which don't.
The Jennings books are dreadful. But the William books are superb.

Ds had Mr Twiddle as his reading book. I loved it as a kid but was glad when we got to the end this time.

I don't know why you;r e surprised.

Lots of popular books are not particularly well-written. It is not just good writing that makes a good story.

I'm surprised (personally) because they are books for reading aloud as well as reading to yourself, and the number of sentences I have stumbled over because the grammar is just confusing enough to make them not scan...It's painful. I've tried reading them in a clipped English voice and it makes no difference

I found the same with Thomas the Tank Engine (the originals). SO glad that phase is over.

Was it original Enid or a rewritten one? I picked up a PC'd Wishing Chair in the library, involving Jack, Jessica and Wishler - what was wrong with Peter and Molly? - and thought how naff it was.

And while we're (sort of) on the subject, whoever let anyone reprint Milly Molly Mandy and change the pictures? The author was primarily an illustrator, ffs!

WHAT? (re Milly Molly Mandy reprints).
The pictures are exquisite, and you can colour them in! Why on earth would anyone change them?!

I used to love Jennings (more than Just William). Haven't been back to revisit.

I also loved Biggles (bit of a crush there) , and recently rather enjoyed finding one I hadn't read as a child, Biggles learns to fly. I still enjoyed it, quite instructive about the development of WW1 flying methods.

My Dad used to grind his teeth when he saw me reading Enid Blyton, and he was always buying me alternatives -- so a win win situation for me

Leafing through my old collection with a view to getting my DCs interested, I have to say I was horrified by the quality of writing too.

You can enjoy good quality and poor quality writing though, just as I enjoy Proper Serious Literature, and the odd Aga saga and chicklit.

And I like arthouse cinema about angst-ridden losers in foreign languages with subtitles, but also like re-runs of Friends and other easy-watch soapy stuff.

Same with children, I think it's only a problem if they are ONLY reading the easy-read-crap. Two of my dds read Enid Blyton but also lots of more challenging stuff, the 3rd likes sparkly magic princess kitten storires but other stuff too.

Dd and I have read the Faraway Tree (new version) which was never ending, and not nearly as scary as I seem to remember!

We read the new version of the Naughtiest Girl series which was quite good (tho' as an only child with an only child I take great exception to the insistence that any child with any kind of social problem at all has the problem because they're an only child!)

Now on the original Malory Towers, which tbh, are pretty bizarre in places!

Have the Famous Fives lined up for when MT is finished. I think they are all quite badly written, but at the rate EB must have been churning them out- she wrote 100s didn't she? there's no wonder.

Mr Twiddle would of course, be heaven fodder for the Mail readers......

My first daughter read masses of Enid off her own bat - couldn't get enough of it - it was useful "fodder" for that "break-through" stage when they just want to read and read. My second is less of a reader, so I have to do more reading out loud to her, and I'm afraid I drew the line at reading Enid out loud once we were at "Famous 5" etc stage - I too tried the Castle of Adventure and was shocked at how breathtakingly dull it was. But I have a soft spot for some of the "early-years" Enid short stories - even though what always gets me about Enid is the strong thread of nasty unforgiving retributive justice - the relentless "squishing" of "naughty" children e.g. the little boy who is cheeky and is punished by a Brownie who casts a spell on him so that his cheeks will expand if he is cheeky for the rest of his life - or the little graffiti artist who is punished by a brownie coming and graffiti-ing in the child's handwriting all over his mother's lounge and bathroom in the middle of the night so that the little boy gets the blame. Horrid.

I did make a recent discovery of an alternative to Enid - "The Ship that Flew" by Hilda Lewis - an Enid contemporary, but much better written - HL wrote this book for her son when they were on their hols (as you do) because she had nothing to read to him.

I wasn't allowed to read them as a child. It is quite possibly the only parenting rule I've continued for my own children. They are quite, quite dreadful on every level.

I can't remember who wrote this but it was something along the lines of the best children's books being ones that you could still enjoy as an adult. That's certainly been true for me, in that I could never read Blyton for enjoyment now (having loved them as a child), whereas I can quite happily read Stig of the Dump or the Narnia books or When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.

After reading stories to my children and grand children,I have realised that Enid Blyton stories are overated for todays children.We tend to read them because she is a well known author and often remember them from our own childhood. I am now trying to find interesting and well written stories to encourage my grand children to love reading and also find role models they can relate to. I prefer stories which reflect their own experiences.

I don't remember being worried about bad writing when reading The Secret Seven books when I was young. I was just completely absorbed by the adventure. Same for the Famous Five.
Mind you, I've never been a hyper-critical reader and can still enjoy a good story even if the style is a bit (not very) dodgy.