Poetics of Children's Literature

[Lenoir]

I came across this work: Poetics of Children's Literature by Zohar Shavit.
Poetics
I wasn’t even sure if it should be filed under The Author, as only parts of it deal with Enid Blyton but it is in the same vein as the thesis posted earlier.
I haven’t read all of it in full because it is a lot to get through and I was more interested in the Blyton part. It takes a bit of digesting I thought.

Surveys of reading habits and publishers' reports show that the more lowly regarded writers are, the better their books sell (Enid Blyton's books and the Nancy Drew series illustrate the matter.

I found that a bit strange but I suppose she means Blyton was unpopular with the critics and therefore not highly regarded, but despite that she still sold lots of books.

She compares Enid Blyton characters / plot lines to Nancy Drew books, see chapter 4 page 93. Chapter 4 is the chapter that deals with Enid Blyton.
Some good points are made. I suppose some of them have been made before but this is another view.

I liked this comment on the Famous Five, it's a bit of light relief from the more serious writing:

Moreover, the texts stress their obedience in a typical English manner: they are never late for their meals unless they have some extraordinary reasons! In Five on Finniston Farm, they are trapped underground and thus cannot come to tea on time -- a lesser excuse than that will not do!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thanks, Lenoir. It looks interesting - when I've got the time to read it!

[Lenoir]

I never did it, I never! Ooooooh! I never did it! Where’s my auntie?

None of these learned expositions attempt to explain this, the famous auntie bit. No one can I suppose. Probably no one ever will, and maybe it's better that way.

This was one of the first FFO books I read as well, so it’s a wonder I continued reading them after that. On second thoughts, maybe that’s why I continued to read them!