Narnia and Enid Blyton
Oh... childhood
Been reading books of Narnia of the late, I was laughing to myself, as I first set eyes on that yellow, sandy pages, with its moderate sized letters and the wordings of the book like "Lucy came upon a Lamp-post in the middle of a winter forest. A faun named Mr. Tumnus appeared, and asked Lucy if she was, in fact, a Daughter of Eve. Lucy then went with Mr. Tumnus to have tea and cakes. It wasn't until after they had finished that Tumnus revealed his cruel intentions for bringing her home, not realising she was a nice girl."
Memmories of reading my hardcover Enid Blyton books like "A Hole in my Pocket"( the only book i remember of her off-handedly) , and the characters of Golliwogs, came to my mind, and as I was discussing with Jenny last night, we recalled more stories like The Wishing Chair seris, St Clare's series and The Famous Five. The funny thing is none of my non- Singaporean/ Msian friends have heard of Enid Blyton....which me and Jenny ( who is Msian) consider it to be the author during our era! Haha wonder what was the author of your time and in your country.....french, chinese, spanish etc....:)
Anyways to write this blog, I actually goggled for Enid Blyton, and found interesting things about this LADY ( i always though she was a he) that I never thought about when I was reading her books at the age of 4- 7 years old.
Excerpts: Controversies:
They reflect a none-too-subtle version of Britain's class system, as in rough versus well-behaved. Undoubtedly present are some stereotypes on gender. Some argue, from a current perspective, that the portrayal of golliwogs, amongst others, was racist. On the other hand, the Famous Five displayed a remarkably modern equality of teamwork between the sexes, and while golliwogs often appeared as villains in the Noddy books, elsewhere in her fantasy works they appeared as the heroes.It was frequently reported, in the 1950s and also from the 1980s onwards, that various children's libraries removed some of Blyton's works from the shelves.
Coming to mind, was also this brand review of the top 100 brands in 2005, one of which Harry Potter came in the running. It was known as a distractionary brand which appeals to both kids and adults who want to escape into a made-up world, away from the mundane and depressing realities of our so called real world, hehe. Adults are no longer ashamed reading fantasy storybooks, helped by the revamped more mature cover of the Harry Potter books.
Oh well it does help to that the stories are really exciting and creative!
Been reading books of Narnia of the late, I was laughing to myself, as I first set eyes on that yellow, sandy pages, with its moderate sized letters and the wordings of the book like "Lucy came upon a Lamp-post in the middle of a winter forest. A faun named Mr. Tumnus appeared, and asked Lucy if she was, in fact, a Daughter of Eve. Lucy then went with Mr. Tumnus to have tea and cakes. It wasn't until after they had finished that Tumnus revealed his cruel intentions for bringing her home, not realising she was a nice girl."
Memmories of reading my hardcover Enid Blyton books like "A Hole in my Pocket"( the only book i remember of her off-handedly) , and the characters of Golliwogs, came to my mind, and as I was discussing with Jenny last night, we recalled more stories like The Wishing Chair seris, St Clare's series and The Famous Five. The funny thing is none of my non- Singaporean/ Msian friends have heard of Enid Blyton....which me and Jenny ( who is Msian) consider it to be the author during our era! Haha wonder what was the author of your time and in your country.....french, chinese, spanish etc....:)
Anyways to write this blog, I actually goggled for Enid Blyton, and found interesting things about this LADY ( i always though she was a he) that I never thought about when I was reading her books at the age of 4- 7 years old.
Excerpts: Controversies:
They reflect a none-too-subtle version of Britain's class system, as in rough versus well-behaved. Undoubtedly present are some stereotypes on gender. Some argue, from a current perspective, that the portrayal of golliwogs, amongst others, was racist. On the other hand, the Famous Five displayed a remarkably modern equality of teamwork between the sexes, and while golliwogs often appeared as villains in the Noddy books, elsewhere in her fantasy works they appeared as the heroes.It was frequently reported, in the 1950s and also from the 1980s onwards, that various children's libraries removed some of Blyton's works from the shelves.
Coming to mind, was also this brand review of the top 100 brands in 2005, one of which Harry Potter came in the running. It was known as a distractionary brand which appeals to both kids and adults who want to escape into a made-up world, away from the mundane and depressing realities of our so called real world, hehe. Adults are no longer ashamed reading fantasy storybooks, helped by the revamped more mature cover of the Harry Potter books.
Oh well it does help to that the stories are really exciting and creative!
3 Comments:
I read every single book in the Famous Five series.
By Dody G., At 12:52 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock_and_the_Three_Investigators
is also a good one.
Plus the German TKKG kids gang stories.
By Dody G., At 1:05 PM
funny I was just talking last weekend to my friend's parents about childrens books and how enid blyton was no longer "PC"...come on seriously, there were good gollywogs too!
I loved the secret seven, famous five and longed to have a tree hut, dog and to go for cycles through the country and have a picnic of sandwiches, scones with jam and lashings of whipped cream and bottles of ginger ale.
...other faves were Roald Dahl, Margaret Mahy & Joy Cowley (NZ) and Peter Jennings (Aust)...ooh and pick-a-paths!
By Tee, At 5:23 PM
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