What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

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HopeMeijer
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by HopeMeijer »

Tony Summerfield wrote:I am currently reading The Sea of Adventure. It was the very first Blyton book that I read, followed by two more Adventure books, but I didn't read my fourth one until I was in my 40s! :oops:

As the children are relaxing comfortably on a springy bed of heather, I keep wondering whether Enid ever tried it!!
I'm currently working my way through the whole series again and have just purchased River because Mum's set wasn't complete - Ship is my next one!

I noticed a lot of children's books from that era extol the virtues of sleeping on heather. I tried it once when I was about 12 and went hiking in West Sussex...I can guarantee from personal experience it's not that comfortable!
Still, you never knew with Bill. He had a remarkable way of doing impossible things extraordinarily quickly. - The Mountain of Adventure

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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Chrissie777 »

Daisy wrote:I think the children in Secret Island found the heather less than comfortable by morning too. Sometimes there was an available rug to help a bit!
Daisy, didn't the FF add more heather every night to their "beds"?
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Daisy »

They did indeed Chrissie.
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Chrissie777 »

Daisy wrote:They did indeed Chrissie.
:D
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Rob Houghton »

I guess sleeping on heather is a similarly fantastical idea to those others Enid used when the children 'camped out' - heathery beds, or bracken beds, finding cool delicious streams of water, sleeping inside gorse bushes, finding 'clean fresh' pools of drinking water on islands inhabited by thousands of sea birds while also not getting showered with bird muck...etc etc! :lol:
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Courtenay »

And never needing to use the loo, either, even when tied up or locked in a room for hours and hours. :wink:
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It was a nuisance. An adventure was one thing - but an adventure without anything to eat was quite another thing. That wouldn't do at all. (The Valley of Adventure)
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Wolfgang »

Just a matter of self-control ;-).
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Rob Houghton »

I'm currently reading one story a night of 'Enid Blyton's Picnic Party'. I thought I'd read the book previously - but I don't really remember any of the stories in detail, so maybe I didn't!

Last night I read 'Two Little Meddlers' (coincidentally its the 'story for Robert' lol!) and I must say I found it quite a disturbing story - quite different to some others of Enid's of the same ilk. It involves two children who meddle in everything, and they are cured of their meddling eventually - but some of the aspects of the story were almost surreal and quite nightmarish! Taps that won't turn off, some containing blue 'toffee', gold dust that flies everywhere and turns into normal dust, blue water that dyes skin etc etc - and most horrific of all, a dark 'splash' that lands on the girl's dress and howls like a dog in a mournful way, which can't be wiped off! :shock:

Anyone else read this story?
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by John Pickup »

No, but I'd certainly like to. :shock:
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Rob Houghton
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Rob Houghton »

I almost wondered what Enid was smoking at the time, lol! :shock: :lol:

Its also available to read in ' A Hole In Her Pocket and other stories' (Award 1987) and 'A Hole In Her Pocket and other stories' (Bounty, 2014) as well as a Sunny Stories ( issue 367 November 1945).
Last edited by Rob Houghton on 13 Aug 2017, 14:43, edited 1 time in total.
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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John Pickup
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by John Pickup »

And people say she recycled the same old plots!
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Freddy Strang »

Am reading the Famous Fives in order again just now and finished Five Go To Smugglers Top last night so will start reading Five Go Off In A Caravan later on today :)
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Chrissie777 »

Last night I started reading FOATI for the 17th time (at least :)), because in September 1942 they were published for the first time. Happy 75th anniversary, Famous Five!!!
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by IceMaiden »

I'm on Mountain in the Adventure series. I'm enjoying it, but I can't help thinking that Bill and Mrs Mannering wouldn't really have let the children have a guide who they couldn't even communicate with on a basic level and who didn't understand them either!

I'm also trying to work out what part of wales the story is meant to be set in. The sing song speak of the locals makes it seem like the South, but on the other hand it's more mountainous in the North :P .
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by pete9012S »

Rob Houghton wrote:I'm currently reading one story a night of 'Enid Blyton's Picnic Party'. I thought I'd read the book previously - but I don't really remember any of the stories in detail, so maybe I didn't!

Last night I read 'Two Little Meddlers' (coincidentally its the 'story for Robert' lol!) and I must say I found it quite a disturbing story - quite different to some others of Enid's of the same ilk. It involves two children who meddle in everything, and they are cured of their meddling eventually - but some of the aspects of the story were almost surreal and quite nightmarish! Taps that won't turn off, some containing blue 'toffee', gold dust that flies everywhere and turns into normal dust, blue water that dyes skin etc etc - and most horrific of all, a dark 'splash' that lands on the girl's dress and howls like a dog in a mournful way, which can't be wiped off! :shock:

Anyone else read this story?
Thanks for the tip Rob. I'm reading the story from my pdf copy of Enid Blyton's Picnic Party right now.
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