Enid Blyton

[PBMA1980]

Anyone want to start an Enid Blyton thread?

We could talk about a variety of subjects all relating back to Blyton books, from the light (which character did you most want to be to which food sounded the tastiest) to the heavier (dissecting racism and name changes in Blyton books).

Brer Rabbit was on the TV (American cartoon style) this weekend. DS now enjoying those stories where those with bad intentions always come off worse. Reminds me of Road Runner & Wiley E Coyote. Wonder which came first?

Racism in Kipling, you say? Well blow me down... .

"But as a child you don't get that at all! You just get the excitement of the fantasy - and frankly if you holding books to that standard of expected equality in treatment of the sexes, then there are virtually no children's books pre 1975 that would pass the 'test'. Bit sad, no?"

That's why I said that if there is other merit then books are worth editing/explanation. If there isn't- as in the case of EB- then why perpetuate them?

Children just enjoy a good story and I don't see what is wrong with that. There is nothing worse than a worthy parent spoiling it for them.
Mine never let me anyway-if ever I tried to start a discussion along the lines of 'don't you think........' they would roll their eyes and say 'it is just a story, mum, you don't have to take it so seriously'! which in retrospect seems a very healthy attitude. You make up your own mind as you get older.
DCs love subversive reading-well understood by Roald Dahl. The thought that my mother didn't approve would have got me borrowing it and reading it under the bedclothes with a torch!

Enid Blyton was banned by librarians. She survived because she told a good story. I found her wonderful, easy reading escapism as a DC -I was an avid reader and had a huge range, she was only a small part of it.

seeker, lots of us are trying to argue that the other merit in EB is the fantasy and adventure. That is really down to a matter of taste, if you don't like her stories that's fine, but lots of people find the stories have precisely the merit worth bothering with.
ElaineReese yes maybe that should have been more obvious to me, but I wasn't really expecting it in animal stories!

Reacting to all I've read...

I don't think I'd censor the word n; I think I'd explain that once people didn't realise how horribly hurtful and offensive it was, and urge them never ever to use it. (I hear the new Dam Busters film is having another go at renaming Guy Gibson's dog - was N, then Trigger, now Digger, which just seems as if it's covering up how RACIST and how UNTHINKINGLY RACIST people once were.)

I loved Five Go To Smuggler's Top as a child and I really don't think it made me racist, despite all the jokes about Sooty, but otoh my parents never addressed the issue with me, and they IMHO should have. I didn't absorb the class values either, probably because I failed to notice them. On Miss Grayling, in my experience heads to this day do exactly this - wilfully break confidentiality with a favoured few parents and grumble or sigh audibly about other less favoured parents.

Yes, agree Harry Potter is just as bad... godsakes, nobody is LESS impartial than effing Dumbledore - (and they are also no better written, and librarians have rushed to lahve them, perhaps to show a story should nowadays come first). If Blyton were alive now she'd be much more lauded. She'd sensibly tone down her prejudices (but not much) and get the middle Britain vote (like Rowling).

I just don't think that we should be giving children books that unquestioningly reinforce attitudes that still, sadly, prevail today. We are creating our children's mental furniture- shouldn't we try to make it the best furniture we can?

Again: either you help your children question those attitudes as you/they read (or abridge them as best you can) or you also rule out E Nesbit, Frances Hodgson Burnett, J M Barrie etc. What is your view of these authors, seeker?

The three you mention have literary merit which makes editing/ explanation worth while. And despite being historically earlier, have nothing like the level of racism, sexism, classism and snobbery that pervades every single page of EB. You'd do more discussing/editing than reading if you were reading a Malory Towers out loud!

How do you define literary merit?

Proper writing, a different story in every book, interesting varied vocabulary, an element of style...... Evidence of having actually been written!

I can't disagree Seeker, and yet.

I am trying to think what I loved so much about them when I was a child. It was the total absorbtion, but you are right that there are better books, equally absorbing, now. Perhaps we are just trying to give our dc the same pleasurable experience we had? And wilfully ignoring the bad bits.

My dd read St Clares and Malory Towers and we used ot cry with laughter on long walks, all being one of the characters. I like being Mam'zelle, all "Tiens!" and a bit stupid (because French).

The one that I think was genuinely good was the Land of Far Beyond, Pilgrim's Progress for kids. When I got that I read it right through without stopping. And then read it again.

I think that we should credit DCs with having minds of their own and they don't have to have every t crossed and every i dotted by the adult. The one thing with reading is that it makes you aware of lots of other opinions, belief systems etc. They can work out for themselves that views have changed over the years. If you were going to be PC over DCs reading materials you would have to either ban, or heavily censor, most books written before 1970 at the very least-and even some of those.
The EB argument was used 30 yrs ago and DCs still love her books-she tells a good story.
People should have more faith in DCs-if you discuss books with DCs they are often far more discerning than many adults.

I don't think people appreciate the value of equality until they realise that it hasn't always been that way or even at all similar to today. I know many young women who know they would have had difficulty getting jobs in most fields say 30 years ago, but are shocked when they find out that they would have been expected to give up most jobs on marriage, wouldn't be able to have a loan in their own name, could be legally raped by their husbands, etc etc.

I think children need all sorts of literature - stuff that encourages them to aim high and provides role models for behaviour, that feeds their imaginations, that teaches them vocabulary, how plots work, and have the structure of a good story, and also stuff where the subtext values are in accord with the overt values. Blyton does OK in all but the last, but as a child I never noticed all the times when a 'good and kind' character was patronising or dismissive to someone of another background. All I noticed was the Five being willing to hang out with Gipsy Jo and the circus folk and so on and stating that such people could be kind and generous, and totally missed the subtexts about them using dirty rags or not being trustworthy and digs about poor spelling.

Ironically one of the books I won't be putting in ds's reach even when he can read it is 'The Six Bad Boys' which was considered very ahead of its time with six boys (!) who for a variety of reasons have family breakdown and end up in the youth court. The blame is placed mainly on the parents of both the middle-class boys and the working-class ones, but also made clear that circumstances can affect such things - one boy's family who had 5 kids and parents living 'in two rooms' get transferred to a new housing estate and a nice little house and live happily ever after once they're not overcrowded, one's mother wasn't coping with being abandoned by father and received help... but one got packed off to Borstal despite being regularly beaten by his grandfather - he was Irish so there was no hope for him... Apart from the amazing anti-Irish sentiment it's very forward-looking for the time -you could have it serialised in the Guardian even today!
'The Put-Em-Rights' is another one where wealthy kids are inspired by a preacher to help others who 'need' it and have it brought home to them that actually fixing their own faults would be an idea first - and the working-class boy who tags along learns he should be happy with his 'equals' not his 'betters'.

Both are fascinating social studies but don't contain adventure or imagination for small children, and certainly not enough to counteract the subtextual messages.

Forgive me for not being very coherent today - I'm off my face on codiene...

"Proper writing's" a bit vague. Though I understand what you are trying to say. But in that case, EB is the equivalent of mass culture. And just because it is mass culture, it should not be devalued. It is a bit like saying that nobody should read escapist chick lit because it perpetuates an unrealistic and romantic notion of relationships, instead we should all read Jane Eyre.

When you take out the old-fashioned un-PC values from high-end children's literature and from EB, all you are left with is an aesthetic judgement.

But it's not because Enid Blyton is mass culture that it's devalued - even were she not racist/classist/sexist, her plots are paper thin, her characterisations relentlessly one dimensional, and her vocabulary severely limited.

ElaineR you're still basically making an aesthetic judgement. Eastenders characters are one-dimensional, the plots are ludicrous, the vocabulary of the dialogue severely limited, and yet it is still a monolith of mass culture.

To an adult Elaine. The DC likes the story. Anyway how do you appreciate good literature if you never see bad?

I think that it is important to understand attitudes in the past and I can't think of a better way than fiction. Otherwise you get discussions on adoption where sanctimonious girls in 21st century are saying 'I would never have given my baby up for adoption' with no understanding that in 1955 a 16yr old had no choice if her family threw her out. She wouldn't have got a job and she had no means of support and authority had one view-give up the DC.

I recall discussing some TV show with kids I know (then aged about 6 and 10) and I burst out "That's such a cliche!" and they said it wasn't - on the grounds that it couldn't be a cliche if you hadn't seen in before!
Blyton or so many other kids' stories work the same way.

One adventage of them ebing out of date is kids will learn more vocab - like 'smashing' and 'lashings of ginger beer' and 'rounds' of sandwiches, and bicycle parts. And boat terms and theatrical and circus words. I'm not arguing they're the greatest books ever but they tell an adventure story fast and well, in terms children can understand.

We live in a different time though, even children are aware that things are not as it is nowadays. When I read EB as a child the obvious (well it is obvious to me now!) classism and racism went completely over my head, but my DD picked up on it immediately. She still enjoys the books and knows that they are from a different time when people thought in a very different way (and that knowledge is important). I never realised until I read the books as an adult what an unbearably sexist pig Julian (Famous Five) is, but I'm sure that a child of today would see it immediately like my daughter did.

There are dodgy messages given by other authors too. Roald Dahl, in Esio Trot gives out a very dubious message in how the lonely and creepy single man snared the big breasted and not too bright looking woman downstairs while staring at her from the balcony upstairs while she bends over ministering to her tortoise by calculatingly substituting her much loved pet and never telling her the truth. If she did know what he did she would never be with him, but we are supposed to be happy about the "happy" (well it is, but for the man only) ending.

I agree with you megapixels and I think it is a good thing that it is there for a DC to pick up on.
I have discussed books with many DCs and they are very discerning and have great insight.
They dismiss the parts that are not relevent, as in my DS saying 'it is just a story Mum, there is no need to take it so seriously'.
He saw it for what it was, it wasn't the way he acted but he found the story exciting. Even if adults we wouldn't read much if we had to agree with the sentiments of the author!

Roald Dahl has very dodgy messages-he knew that DCs like them.

Oh Roald Dahl's messages are very dubious, yes - misogyny in The Witches, and Charlie and The Chocolate factory is just nasty, as is George's MArvellous Medicine...

But he did have an imagination and he did create some memorable characters.

Well, and lots of adult reading has dubious messages too. Should we also ban The Merchant of Venice - apparently Hitler loved it and cited it as an influence? I don't see people rushing out of the theatre to perform anti-Semitic acts, though - because they get it, and they also get, as he probably didn't, that the play is also against anti-semitism. Seeker, I just don't like censorship in any form, and the modern kindly-liberal form is in itself no better than the idea once held that the best children's books were overtly Christian and very very moral. I'd say Blyton and her awful writing is a price worth paying for liberty to browse and read...