Faraway Tree Books by Jacqueline Wilson

[pete9012S]

Good words Debbie. Wise words too.

I haven't even read the original Faraway Tree Book yet - so I will mark this new version down to read in around another 80 years time.
By then, I will no doubt have been pushing up the daisies for a number of decades, unless I live to 134!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Debbie, I agree that some of Jacqueline Wilson's books deliver almost unrelenting misery (e.g. Lola Rose and The Illustrated Mum) but I liked the Hetty Feather series, about a foundling girl in the Victorian era. Like you, Fiona, I also enjoyed Four Children and It, inspired by E. Nesbit's Five Children and It.

Having said that, I'm dismayed that numerous "Enid Blyton" stories by other authors are available while many original Enid Blyton titles have been allowed to go out of print despite receiving a great deal of praise, such as the Barney series, the Adventurous Four books, the Six Cousins titles and stand-alone family books. And Katharine, I too feel that if messages about gender equality etc. are included in a story, they should be incorporated seamlessly into the plot rather than being expounded on.

Those that haven't seen it might be interested in this article from the Daily Mail online which was posted this morning.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -Tree.html

There is a quote in the article from Alexandra Antscherl (who the Mail wrongly call Alexander unless they have corrected it by now!) who is in charge of all things 'Blyton' at Hachette Children's Books:-

"I knew that Jacqueline Wilson was a huge fan of these books in her early childhood, and with the 80th anniversary of the series coming in 2023 I realised this would be the ideal way to celebrate it."

Sadly she has already missed the 80th Anniversary which was in 2019, as The Enchanted Wood was published in May 1939, immediately after being serialised in Sunny Stories from October 1938 to May 1939.

Fancy Hachette getting the anniversary wrong! The Magic Faraway Tree was published in 1943 and is often mistakenly thought of as being the first Faraway Tree book.

James Gant, reporter for the Daily Mail, has quoted my words accurately. He also quoted me in another article last month, which was about the Oxford University Press urging parents to read modern books to their children as well as older books. Again, the quotations from me were fine. However, I certainly didn't "blast" or "hit out at" the Oxford University Press (as stated in the headline and the opening sentence). I actually said that I agreed with the OUP that it was good for children to experience a wide range of texts, both old and modern. Here's a link to that article:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ading.html

[Jomo]

“This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound tracks, cartoons, photographs--to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date.”

~ George Orwell 1984

[Lucky Star]

It's a bit unclear to me what exactly she has done. If it's a brand new book and story then I guess she is free to write it any way she wants so long as the magical setting remains essentially unaltered. I too fail to see the need for a gender equality lecture. She could simply have shown the boys and girls all doing the same tasks and the message would get across anyway. I'll wait with interest to read it, or read others' reviews of it, when it comes out.

[Fiona1986]

But is there a 'lesson' in there? I mean how often did George say that she could do everything a boy could, and often better? Was that Blyton putting in a lesson on equality or just a girl standing up for herself? The Daily Mail are calling it a lesson on equality to stir the pot.

Anita, I found The Illustrated Mum quite sad. But then not every child in the real world gets a fairy tale happy ending. My favourite Jacqueline Wilson books as a child were The Suitcase Kid, The Lottie Project, Double Act, The Bed and Breakfast Star and The Mum Minder. As a grown up I have read all the Hetty Feather books and wish there were more! I also loved the TV series.

[Debbie]

I certainly didn't mean that JW's books aren't good. Some of them are fantastic, and ones like Double Act aren't relentlessly miserable-actually that one is pretty cheerful.

I think my concern is that her style is very different. She hasn't written any of her own fantasy stories, as far as I know,-she's copied "5 children and it", which is the nearest I think. The atmosphere of her's are much darker, and much more about a child's innocence than the hardships of life.

I question whether she can alter her style enough to produce a book so different-or even if she'll try. They'll sell, no doubt, but will they lead children to read the originals? Not sure.

How could they have covered the aspects that she's talked about changing?

Parental concern could be dealt with easily by having one of the parents one of the original children. Maybe Silky/Moonface could come and collect the children to take them up. That way they're not going off and being met by strangers in secret. They're doing it with full knowledge and consent from their parent who is passing them over to someone they know they'll be safe with.
By playing with the passing of time she's changing the stories. It's not a time changing one, and that's clear because they have to get time off to go to the Enchanted Wood round their chores. Surely that's a good message to teach children: That they have to do what they want round what they need to do.
And actually it's almost the other way. If you're saying in the modern world don't go off with strangers and keep it a secret from your parents-then a time slip is doing exactly that.

"Sexism". I've put it in inverted commas because I don't really take that aspect people accuse EB of. They were of their time-and could there be a less gender-typical child acceptable to write about in that era than George?
That's easy. Have them all doing the washing up etc. No need to shout about it. You can generally give them non-traditional roles without it being an issue. If you don't make a song and dance about it then it's much better. Reprimanding Moonface is just silly.
I never got from EB books that the boys were cleverer-isn't Anne the only one who doesn't need tutoring, and Bets is definitely portrayed as bright? The only two I think are mentioned specifically as doing well in school are Fatty (which is part of his boasting) and Anne.
I was brought up on EB books and similar and it never occurred to me that I couldn't go to university and do maths because I was a girl. Nor did it effect the boys I shared a flat with. They were very willing to do the washing up and cook etc. Although I do remember the failure of them to mend a puncture once.

[Jomo]

"Sexism". I've put it in inverted commas because I don't really take that aspect people accuse EB of. They were of their time-and could there be a less gender-typical child acceptable to write about in that era than George?
That's easy. Have them all doing the washing up etc. No need to shout about it. You can generally give them non-traditional roles without it being an issue. If you don't make a song and dance about it then it's much better. Reprimanding Moonface is just silly.
I never got from EB books that the boys were cleverer-isn't Anne the only one who doesn't need tutoring, and Bets is definitely portrayed as bright? The only two I think are mentioned specifically as doing well in school are Fatty (which is part of his boasting) and Anne.

I always thought that Anne would be the one to follow the maths/science trajectory as a career. Julian would of course become an artist - eventually, Dick would do something eminently sensible and be very successful at it. George would become a naturalist, archaeologist or palaeontologist, and travel the world.

I started high school in 1966 in a brand new high school, in new public school curriculum that had almost completely eliminated structural sexism, (though a lot of the teachers had some attitudinal adjustments to do).
Everyone studied maths, science and english plus 3 electives. It was readily apparent that girls excelled at science and maths, as well as most other subjects. The boys edged out the girls at maths by just a shade, but the girls wiped the floor with the boy’s results in science. I know this because my mother was teaching science at the same school I attended and was exultant about the results year after year.
The only people who were surprised by this were some male teachers and the boys pulled into the new system from single sex schools where they had apparently been led to believe in their innate superiority.
None of us in my peer group were at all surprised by these outcomes - equal ability as a general thing had been an obvious fact to us as children, despite reading liberal amounts of Enid Blyton and other authors of the time who wrote specific gender roles into their stories. I remember discussing this a few years back with my older sister (who is currently dragging her heels on completing her second PhD) and her telling me she had always assumed that girls were smarter than boys because boys had a shorter attention span.

We don’t need to lecture kids on gender equality, just present plausible models.

[Anita Bensoussane]

So it's another try after the series "Silky and the rainbow feather" and its short lived series. Annoyingly the last three books haven't been published in German.

I'd forgotten about that set of books ('Enid Blyton's Enchanted World') until I read your post, Wolfgang. According to the Cave, there were seven titles published in 2008 and 2009 under the name Elise Allen:

https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/boo ... antedworld

I don't have any of those but I do have a 2006 'Enid Blyton's Enchanted World' book called Friends With the Faraway Fairies, which was the first title of a Chorion partwork (meant to be long-running but which was actually shelved after a trial of five parts in the Tyne Tees area), with each book having an accompanying magazine. The partwork was aimed mainly at girls and the children who go up the Faraway Tree are twins named Sophie and Charlotte (Charlie), aged nine. They get to know Silky the fairy and her friends Petal, Melody, Pinx and Bizzy. At the back of the book is a list of lands that will be visited in the series and it includes some of Enid Blyton's original ones but also many new ones, including the Land of Doubles, the Land of Treasure, the Land of Loneliness, Underwater Land, the Land of Trouble, the Land from the Farthest Galaxy, Bully Land, the Land of Dressing Up, the Land of Time and the Land of Pretence. Two of the lands listed are the same as those which are said to be in Jacqueline Wilson's forthcoming Faraway Tree book - the Land of Unicorns and the Land of Dragons!

Silky and the Rainbow Feather etc. obviously reworked material that was originally intended for the partwork.

[Wolfgang]

Your description sounds interesting, Anita. I remember that you mentioned this previously. I wonder if other elements have been used for "The new adventures of the wishing chair" by Narinder Dhami. If I remember correctly there were dragons and unicorns on some covers of the books.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I haven't read any of the new Wishing-Chair books but unicorns and dragons pop up frequently in fantasy stories. Jacqueline Wilson may well have dreamt up those lands independently for her book, having no idea that a Land of Unicorns and a Land of Dragons had been used (or at least considered) for previous Faraway Tree stories.

[Fiona1986]

I certainly didn't mean that JW's books aren't good. Some of them are fantastic, and ones like Double Act aren't relentlessly miserable-actually that one is pretty cheerful.

Rereading that one as an adult I actually found it much harder and upsetting, especially the end.

[Anita Bensoussane]

More about Jacqueline Wilson's Faraway Tree book, which is being launched at the Hay Festival in May:

https://www.thebookseller.com/insight/w ... es-1300958

[Lucky Star]

Thanks Anita, that’s interesting. I’m in two minds about it. I don’t see a need to add competition to Enid’s originals and yet it may prove popular and lead some extra readers to the originals. They certainly seem to be pushing the boat out for it in terms of publicity.

[pete9012S]

I wouldn't mind having a look to see a currently popular author's take on the Faraway Tree, but I very much doubt it'll be anywhere near as good as the originals — let alone still selling 80+ years after its first publication, as the original books are!!

Yes, these are more or less my own thoughts too.

[Anita Bensoussane]

The One Show last night featured Jacqueline Wilson talking about her Faraway Tree book. I'm not sure how long the programme will be available on iPlayer but the relevant segment starts at about 13 mins 40 secs. Jacqueline Wilson says she received Enid Blyton's The Enchanted Wood for her sixth birthday and became so involved with the story that, by the time she reached the end of the book, she was a fluent reader. I hadn't realised that Jacqueline had a writing shed, just like Roald Dahl. It looks cosy and peaceful, with lovely views over the Sussex countryside.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m ... w-06092022