Boys and school stories?

[Julie2owlsdene]

I would think that any fan of Blyton would want to read any of her books no matter where they were set.

I can hardly remember the school stories now, but I did read them many times, when young, but funnily enough I had no desire to join them either at Malory Towers or St. Clare's. In fact I would have hated to be at a boarding school. It was bad enough going to a day school.

[Lenoir]

Well, I discovered the school stories in my sister’s bookcase one day when I had nothing to read and I thought I would try them. She had 2 MTs and 2 SCs and I liked the idea of midnight feasts and the other drama that went on. I never bothered that they were about girls. I can’t read any other girls books though, but Enid’s school stories are different somehow. Malory Towers in particular is very well written and the characters well drawn. I never really got into Naughtiest girl books, though I have read 2.

Billy Bunter books are great. Some of the plots are maybe a bit weak or repetitive, and he is a horrible character, but the way they are written is just marvellous.

Jennings is equally great. And these books can be read from an adult’s point of view because of the way they are written, very clever. They still make me laugh. Even my mother used to like them and she was more into detective/police thrillers and so on.

Sorry to 'nitpick', but there were actually 24 Jennings books.

I have a list of 25 Jennings books (I copied a list from some website to keep track of which books I don't have). But I think one of them ("Bookful of Jennings"?) is a compilation, not a “standard” book, so perhaps it doesn't count.

Jennings is superb. Which was the story in which he recited a textbook chapter that he'd been forced to learn to the amazement of a school inspector? It made me cry with laughter.

I had a quick look not expecting to find it, and was lucky.
Last chapter of Thanks to Jennings.

[Tony Summerfield]

Sorry to 'nitpick', but there were actually 24 Jennings books.

I have a list of 25 Jennings books (I copied a list from some website to keep track of which books I don't have). But I think one of them ("Bookful of Jennings"?) is a compilation, not a “standard” book, so perhaps it doesn't count.

Spot on, 'Sooty'! 'Bookful' is indeed the one that doesn't count.

[Kitty]

Jennings is superb. Which was the story in which he recited a textbook chapter that he'd been forced to learn to the amazement of a school inspector? It made me cry with laughter.

I had a quick look not expecting to find it, and was lucky.
Last chapter of Thanks to Jennings.

Ah, fantastic! Now I can go and find it Many thanks!

[Aurélien]

Must admit that as a juvenile 'bookworm' lounge-lizard I'd read anything if I had run out of preferred reading material. (Not just from my sister's bookshelves either, Lenoir. When out visiting I could usually be safely parked 'in neutral' in front of almost any set of bookshelves for hours at a time while my elders nattered.)

Until the late R. G. Trease's "NO BOATS ON BANNERMERE", with its day school pupils, slid into view, though, I never found a British children's school-based novel that seemed set on the same planet. Maybe 'cos I myself only attended day schools?

‘Aurélien Arkadiusz’

[Enikyoga]

Despite never having attended a boarding school, Enid Blyton wrote one of, if not the best boarding school stories. Although not a female, I read The Malory Towers, St. Clare’s, The Naughtiest Girl and stand-alone series like The Children of Kidillin with much enthusiasm and anticipation and I wept almost blood when I did not qualify to get into a boarding school of my choice because my older brothers would tell me of the fantastic adventures they had encountered in the boarding schools they attended. Fortunately, I attended a boarding school during the last two years of my high school and I almost wished my stay there would never end, because of the happiness I got from the experience. Unfortunately, you get people who are negative about boarding schools and who in their mind-set think that they are some sort of Auschwitz or Gulag, yet these people have never stepped into a boarding school or even stayed in one, even for a day.
Some of these people even become “experts” on the “horrors” of boarding schools, while they have never attended even one in their lives. Some of them have expressed “horrors” about boarding schools on the Blyton Yahoo Group, only to discover that they have never even attended, let alone having stepped into any boarding school for even a single day, or perhaps, for even an hour. So it is better for those people to reserve judgement about the hell they imagine exists in boarding schools-an aspect they imagine in their own heads, without first-hand experience.

[Yak]

Well it's like all experiences .. some people see it as positive and some as negative. I personally was a day pupil and a boarding school and would not have fancied boarding much but that's cos my group of friends were all day pupils and, quite frankly, most of the school bullies were comprised of boarders. Had my friends been boarders tho I am sure I would have loved it!