What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

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

Post by Daisy »

I'm reading Rilloby Fair at the moment, and enjoying it as much as ever.
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sixret
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by sixret »

Nice to know you are enjoying it, Daisy. :D


I think all titles in Barney series are good except Ragamuffin which is only mediocre but not downright and unreadable book.

Excellent: Rubadub, Ring O'Bell, Rilloby Fair.
Good: Rat-A-Tat, Rockingdown.
Mediocre: Ragamuffin.

Even Ragamuffin is better than FF are Together Again! :lol:
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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 agree except for Ragamuffin and Rat-a-tat! I would reverse them and put Ragamuffin with Rockingdown. :-D
'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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pete9012S
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by pete9012S »

Image
The 1973 version my Nan bought me.Showing 'my cap'..

I read Ragamuffin in North Wales on holiday when I was about the same age as Snubby.I even went into a Welsh seaside village and bought myself a sailor's cap just like his.

I thought I looked wonderful,but in reality everybody must have thought I looked a right plonker.
So, because I read it at a young age,not far from the imaginary Welsh village the mystery took place and I was a bit like Snubby in those days,I have always enjoyed the book....strange I know.

I really can't get into the Rat A Tat Mystery for some reason.Even though it does have an excellent title!
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Rob Houghton
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Rob Houghton »

pete9012S wrote:I read Ragamuffin in North Wales on holiday when I was about the same age as Snubby.I even went into a Welsh seaside village and bought myself a sailor's cap just like his.
I also first read Ragamuffin in North Wales, while on holiday. I bought it in a small local shop that had a few Enid Blytons, and this was one I had never read, so I bought it hungrily! :-D I've always had a soft spot for it.

This was the one I bought - which I still have -

Image

Funnily enough, I also bought a 'sailor cap' around this time - though not as a result of reading the story. Mine was all blue though, but it did have a peak. I wore it for ages, and its one of the few times in my life I've ever worn a hat!
'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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Kate Mary
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Kate Mary »

I'm reading Five Go To Demon's Rocks. I haven't read it in a long while and I'm enjoying it very much.
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Pauline »

I am reading In the Fifth at Malory Towers and feeling just a bit sorry for Maureen Little. She WAS very silly, and conceited, but it must have been horribly humilating when the girls asked her to write music, poems, sing songs and and design costumes then screamed with laughter, making out that they believed she had to be joking because they were so bad, in order to take her down a peg or two and stop her being a 'pest' by continually offering for help. She wouldn't have forgotten that experience in a hurry. To be fair, several of the girls including Darrell, Sally, Mary-Lou and Bill, did feel rather bad about it.
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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 think one of the reasons I've never been much of a fan of the 'girls only' school stories is that Enid presents us with a bunch of such snobbish, nasty, big-headed, bitchy characters, who she promotes as being the goodies!! :shock:
'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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Pauline
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Pauline »

Some truth there, I think...although I do love these school stories myself.
Last edited by Pauline on 06 Apr 2017, 22:53, edited 1 time in total.
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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 do still enjoy them as I enjoy most EB books - but I have to overlook some of the snobbishness! I find myself thinking 'Are these really the goodies?!' :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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IceMaiden
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by IceMaiden »

I'm on The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters having just finished Secret Room. I have to say this is the first time I'm reading the Find Outers in the Methuen hardbacks, and I'm not so far too fond of the internal illustrations. In Spiteful Letters in one drawing Fatty seems to have a very large head and a rather short puny arm which looks rather strange :P . Also unlike Eileen Soper's FF, they don't fit how I picture the Find Outers in my mind, which is a pity, as one of the reasons I like the original books is for the illustrations. Perhaps they'll improve but at the moment I'm thinking this is one series I wouldn't have minded having no illustrations at all and just leaving it to the reader's mind to imagine. Or maybe it's just me as I can picture all of Enid's other locations, Kirrin, Rubadub Inn, the lagoon in Sea of A, the Faraway Tree or even Galliano's circus camp down to fine detail, but for some reason I can't picture Peterswood. I never have been able to and it annoys me as I love the FO books as much all the others and to not be able to place the main location from them grates badly :x .
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Courtenay »

Don't worry, IceMaiden, I don't think there's anyone here who's a particular fan of Joseph Abbey, illustrator extraordinaire of the first seven Find-Outers books! :P We've had plenty of discussions on how his characters look wooden, he recycles the same faces and body positions again and again in successive illustrations, his grasp of perspective is woeful, and so on.

I've never been particularly worried over not having a clear picture of Peterswood in my head — I know others here have remarked on how Peterswood is clearly based on Bourne End and some have even drawn detailed maps of it, but I've never been to Bourne End and indeed had never seen anything of England (except on TV and in pictures) until 5 1/2 years ago. That never spoiled my enjoyment of Enid's books as a child; I've always figured she was deliberately vague on the fine details of her settings so that young readers could imagine the scenes however they wanted to. As far as my childhood imagination was concerned, Kirrin Bay rather resembled our own nearby beach (with the handy addition of an island and castle) and the Enchanted Wood had more than a few gum trees (eucalyptus) in it! :wink:
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Rob Houghton
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Rob Houghton »

The first illustrator of the Find Outer books - J Abbey - is awful! Everyone knows on here what I think of him! Sometimes his children look like old people, sometimes out of proportion, as you say, and also he uses the same figures or faces repeatedly, with just a few slight alterations. There's an illustration of good on the dust wrapper of Burnt Cottage which he uses again and again in several books.

J Abbey is also very deficient when it comes to perspective - sometimes he doesn't draw using perspective at all!

Later on in the series the illustrators were changed - first Treyer Evans took over and many people like those the best - but my personal favourite is Lilian Buchanan, who illustrated the last three books. :-D
'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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IceMaiden
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by IceMaiden »

I'm glad it's not just me then! So far I've not been taken with any of the illustrations, but this particular one of Fatty is the worst one I've come across, he looks like a rather deformed old man! The other children don't fare much better either, they look far too old.

Thinking about it I'm sure this is why I have trouble picturing them so much, unlike the other books where the illustrations helped to reinforce what I'd imagined, these are so bad their undoing any image my mind has conjured up. It's good to know they'll improve though,all 15 books done like that would be too much :lol: . After the brilliant illustrations in other books I wonder why Enid allowed such mediocre ones in this series? She must have had input for them and could see instantly they weren't up to scratch.
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I'm just an old fashioned girl with an old fashioned mind
Not sophisticated, I'm the sweet and simple kind
I want an old fashioned house, with an old fashioned fence
And A̶n̶ ̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶f̶a̶s̶h̶i̶o̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶a̶i̶r̶e̶
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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'm presuming this might be one illustration that gets your goat!

Image

It certainly gets mine! The proportions are all wrong, Fatty looks awful, Buster looks massive compared to the other figures, and Bets looks like a china doll!

Later in the series we get depictions like this from Treyer Evans - which I prefer -

Image

and this, by Lilian Buchanan - which for me is the closest depiction of how I imagine the characters -

Image
'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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