Website Additions

[Tony Summerfield]

I was told that there was a problem here with his original draft as one of the two boys was black. This must have been the brief given to him by the Royal Mail. Chorion objected saying that they were brothers and both had to be white, so the Noddy stamp was also redone to have a coloured child reading about Noddy instead.

[Courtenay]

That is fair enough, but there's another example of an illustrator being commissioned without them knowing the book(s) or being told exactly who/what they're supposed to be drawing...

[Moonraker]

Perhaps we tend to forget at times that these books are being published for children. When I was a wee lad I used to regularly take and read the Beano and Dandy and I am sure it never worried me that the likes of Dennis the Menace and the Bash Street kids didn't actually look like real children. As a child I enjoyed these images and I am fairly confident that children today will enjoy the 15 colour images in Five on a Treasure Island.

I still disagree. I too loved The Beano and Dandy etc, but those were comics, and cartoon illustrations were expected if not demanded.

I think my main beef is that I always presumed The Famous Five were actually quite serious stories, and I can't take a book seriously where the human participants are depicted as cartoon characters.

I couldn't agree more, Rob. It makes no sense to me to compare the illustrations of post-war British childrens' novels with a tuppeny comic! I loved the illustrations of comic characters in comics such as The Beezer and The Topper, but when I was reading a book set in 40s England, I wouldn't have wanted to see pictures of Scoob-doo type people and a dog resembling the Gruffalo!

I have modern and new (although not these awfully illustrated books) editions on my shelves, but my nearly six year old grandson always chooses the original copies. And he's not a 'crusty old codger'!

[Anne Henriette]

I have modern and new (although not these awfully illustrated books) editions on my shelves, but my nearly six year old grandson always chooses the original copies. And he's not a 'crusty old codger'!

I say! Your grandson's got good taste!!

[Katharine]

I was told that there was a problem here with his original draft as one of the two boys was black. This must have been the brief given to him by the Royal Mail. Chorion objected saying that they were brothers and both had to be white, so the Noddy stamp was also redone to have a coloured child reading about Noddy instead.

I'm sure I read somewhere that someone got upset by the Noddy stamp because it showed a black child. The reasoning behind the objection was that they felt it was intended to show that black children were only capable of reading simple books like Noddy.

[Courtenay]

I'm sure I read somewhere that someone got upset by the Noddy stamp because it showed a black child. The reasoning behind the objection was that they felt it was intended to show that black children were only capable of reading simple books like Noddy.

Blimey O'Reilly, you can't win, can you??

[Tony Summerfield]

Thanks to another thread I have been reminded that I hadn't put Around the Zoo Book into the Cave. I have now loaded the whole book.

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/book ... 8No.+76%29" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thanks, Tony - it's a lovely book. If I'd had it as a child, I'd have loved the wheel on the front. The back cover is beautiful too.

[Courtenay]

What a lovely book, Tony! Thanks for putting it online for us to see. Can't help thinking Enid was a bit unfair on the poor chimpanzees, though — they look quite cute to me!



Interesting, too, now I think about it, that the illustrator chose to show all the animals in their natural environment, or something like it. In a real zoo of the 1920s, I suspect most of them would have been in cages.

[pete9012S]

A lovely book.Thanks for posting Tony.

Can anyone think of a more flattering rhyme for the poor ape/chimpanzee than the one above?
I bet Anita would be good at that.

[Eddie Muir]

A super book. Thanks for posting it, Tony.

[Julie2owlsdene]

What a great book. I love the polar bear babies and the laughing elephants.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Just for Pete (and trying not to stray too far from the basic structure of Enid Blyton's original):

I know that I should love to meet
A cheeky chimpanzee.
He's such a clever, playful ape,
And he could play with me.

[pete9012S]

Now that's more like it!

I think the only other animal to get a slightly negative comment in the book was the wolf.

[Courtenay]

That's lovely, Anita! Much more in the kind of spirit that Enid is usually known for. I haven't yet read any of her other circus or zoo books, but in the Galliano's Circus stories, Sammy the chimp is one of the most prominent animal characters and much is made of his cleverness and sense of fun. I remember how one of the most exciting episodes in the first book, when Sammy is lost and Jimmy sets out to find him, had me on the edge of my seat at the age of 6 or 7! Maybe Enid had a change of heart about chimpanzees some time between the early 1920s and late 1930s...

But seriously — Anita, have you ever contributed any "portry" to the EBS Journal?