Friday 21 July 2017

Can we talk about Enid Blyton?


A picnic with my two lovely girls at the Botanical Gardens got me thinking about Enid Blyton. We packed some snacks, a blanket and some books, one of them an Enid Blyton classic, The Secret Seven. The kid (who is now seven) has become enchanted by the Faraway Tree and The Secret Seven. If I read her a chapter, she will soldier on determinedly on her own, eating up the story word by word, a finger marking the steady progress. I never thought that watching a fledgling reader could make me feel so happy, but it does.

Which brings me to Enid Blyton.

The Wishing Chair, The Faraway Tree, The Famous Five, The Secret Seven and all those page-turning adventure stories made up my reading childhood. I discovered the heady addiction of stories, the desperate need to find out what happens next even after lights out, through these books. I was eight when I started to read in English, having just moved to South Africa with my parents. Enid Blyton books quickly became part of my reading diet and continued to be favourites for years. Reading them felt a bit like making friends in a new place. A lot of it didn't make sense to me or reflect my new life in South Africa. I still have no idea what sort of meal "tea" is. Green meadows and lanes, and the cold, misty, rainy weather all took on mythical qualities in my mind. The humidity and heat, the lush, out-of-control coastal vegetation with its troupes of vervet monkeys, the street vendors at the intersections, the rickshaw drivers at the beachfront, the intoxicating multiculturalism were all absent in the stories I picked up. But it didn't matter. I loved reading them anyway.

Much criticism has been leveled at Blyton for her culturally insensitive, gender-stereotypical stories, but for all that she did wrong, she certainly did something right. Children, pretty much everywhere, love her stories. And this raises a very important question, one I often engage with, namely, who determines what "good" children's literature is? Good according to whom? Who decides? Children or adults? Are adult critics even qualified to do this?

The lack of working mothers, touches of racism and xenophobia, the obvious classism are sometimes hard to overlook as an adult now rereading some of my childhood favourites, but then I watch my fledgling reader's growing hunger for them and suddenly I don't feel so qualified to tell her what she can and can't read.

I think Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Ted Talk The danger of the single story is particularly relevant to children's literature. Perhaps the solution to the Enid Blyton problem is not to eliminate her from children's reading diets, because she certainly has earned her place there, but rather to feed them a rich variety of stories from different places and backgrounds. In other words, offer them a balanced diet with a healthy sprinkling of magic.

So, what are your views on Enid Blyton?






4 comments:

  1. I carry a grief of books in my pocket: the books being those I still love from my own childhood, the bulging grief from my inability to interest my grandchildren in them. All these years later, I still long for a secret hideout in a hollow tree with Pippi Longstocking serving tea. Sigh. So I read the books they are reading. I haven't read Enid Blyton, but I will. Where shall I begin? And I will, most likely, buy one for the seven-year-old with the hope that, sooner or later, one of my old-fashioned books will make an impression.

    Your evaluation of offering children a balanced diet resonates with me. Quite strongly I might add.

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    1. Thanks for commenting! It's funny just how special sharing those childhood favourites is, isn't it? I always think that those formative children's books strike something deeper in us than any adult novel ever will (but that's just my opinion).

      By the way, I totally hear you about Pippi Longstocking. We're fans too!

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  2. Hello from the Maritimes! I am a 63 year old francophone and I remember discovering Enid Blyton at the library when I was around 10 and devoured 'Le Club des cinq" (The Famous Five) and "Le Clan des sept" (The Secret Seven). Reading Blyton is a precious memory of my childhood. I was spending nice summer afternoons at the library reading and my mother used to come and get me to go outside and play and take some fresh air!

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    1. Love these childhood memories of reading! Thanks for commenting. =)

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