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[Rob Houghton]

I'm sort of in between. Although I hate the style of the covers, I do agree that a certain amount of children must undoubtedly be attracted to them - but my main problem is that they misrepresent the stories. Its the same with the Famous Five For Adults - those cosy images on the front don't really illustrate the poor writing that's inside - and the modern children's covers don't fully illustrate the type of story Enid Blyton wrote.

I agree about some of the backgrounds - but 'Adventuring Again' in particular really isn't set in a summery wood! I just don't 'get' the choice of cover illustration for that particular book!

I'm with Pete in that I would much prefer to see a return to the Betty Maxey style illustrations - intelligent illustrations, which as a child I was in awe of. In fact I prefer any of the covers that were created before 2010.

As I've said before, it seems a bit underhand of the publishers to promote these books as David Walliams-style stories just to sell them...but then again they are also doing this with the 'adult' Famous Fives - angling their covers at people's nostalgia - so I guess that underhandedness is fairly widespread within publishing these days. Obviously most people DO judge a book by its cover.

Yes - I agree the publishers have done a good job of keeping these books in print - and actually I see no worth in hanging onto the Eileen Soper covers except for nostalgia - I'd just like to see more realistic and exciting covers that depict a slight dark dangerous side to the stories rather than promoting them as humorous.

[Julie2owlsdene]

Love the cover of the book - The Dear Old Snowman. Soper illustrations are always good and recognizable.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I've just read Terry Gustafson's review of The Dear Old Snow Man, which is detailed and interesting. Ladybird published two of the stories as individual books in 1992 but changed the titles. 'Hurrah for the Pepper-Pot' became Mrs Furrymouse and the Pepper Pot and 'The Funny Little Shadow' became Peter and the Magic Shadow.

Who but a pixie would be called Jiminy?

A cricket?

A search was conducted to discover if any other Blyton snowmen have names and a few came up. There's 'Mr Frosty Man' (Happy Day Stories), 'Mr Snowman' (EB's Merry Story Book), and Mr Shivers' (EB's Third Bedside), but there must be others.

There are at least two snowmen called Mister (or Mr.) Icy-Cold - one in the short story of that name and one in The Rat-a-Tat Mystery.

Lunch time is normally round midday or shortly after but the girl had hers at 11am - and why not? I'd probably have consumed the biscuits upon reaching the buttercup patch, or else on my way there.

In some Enid Blyton books (e.g. The Secret of Spiggy Holes and one of the Happy House titles as well as this story), the word "lunch" is used to mean "elevenses". It's not used in that way nowadays though.

For prospective writers of England's English, it's suggested that periods aren't inserted after 'Mr' and 'Mrs'.

I'm surprised if the periods (or "full stops" as we call them) haven't been inserted because they're usually present in Enid Blyton books.

[Tony Summerfield]

This is one of the new books coming out in 2017 and I hope that some knowledgeable person can tell me where the illustration is taken from!



It is obviously some internal illustration which has had colour added to it, but I am pretty sure that it is definitely by Eileen Soper.

[Anita Bensoussane]

It's a coloured internal from Five Go Off in a Caravan.

This is the original black line drawing:

[Rob Houghton]

It's from Five Go Off In A Caravan - page 35. The tree and the other horse have been obliterated!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Just edited my post at the same time you were doing yours, Rob, to put in the same picture!

[Tony Summerfield]

Clever Girl (as usual!)



And boy!! And you both beat me in loading the picture!!

[Lucky Star]

Why delete the tree and second horse? That just doesn't seem to make sense. Were they trying to save ink?

[Carlotta King]

The only thing I can think is because they needed a plain blue sky as a background for the title, and maybe the tree and horse would have been in the way? The 'Famous Five' title is kind of right where the tree and horse would be, and its a big tree and it would've had a big canopy that covered quite a bit of the cover.

But its a bit of a silly reason, I'm sure they could've made the words smaller or rearranged them somehow.

[Rob Houghton]

Why delete the tree and second horse? That just doesn't seem to make sense. Were they trying to save ink?

Presumably it was so they'd have room for the title etc - instead of having to fill in Soper's illustration by completing the tree, they erased them and just added the sky.

[Lucky Star]

Ah ok I didn't think of that. Although they could have altered the font or size maybe? Never mind I'm quite happy that they have actually used an original Soper illustration (well almost) rather than commissioning some dreadful looking cartoon for the cover.

[Kate Mary]

I see we have a new review by Terry Gustafson, I enjoy his quirky reviews but I wish I could read the stories too. With luck he is going to work his way through the series like he did with Brockhampton Little Books. The plates in the Nature readers are absolutely gorgeous.

[Rob Houghton]

I have Nature Readers book 3 and quite a few others. Luckily, I bought them cheaply - but these days they seem to often be offered on eBay for something like £35 each!! As they are only thin with card covers and contain only two stories each, printed in black and white and one colour, often with rusty staples holding them together, that price seems a little excessive!

By the way - for people who don't already know - the coloured nature plates aren't actually a part of the Nature Readers - they were available separately, and sadly weren't to be found inside the books. The good part is that sometimes they are available to buy as a set on eBay - and they are much bigger in size than these little books!

[Kate Mary]

Thanks Rob, I've never seen any of the Nature Readers so I assumed the plates were in the centre of the booklets.