Talk:Enid Blyton

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[edit] Yanks

You Americans smell to relax with your PC. A book can be good and yet have a girl playing with a doll. Why do you have to spoil everything with pathetics polemics?

Fully agree - Tom

We need some mention of educationalists disapproving of her books because they are so simple to read (though they have stories and are devoured by children).

And then there's the matter of recent reissues of Noddy, with an ethnically cleansed Toytown...

I used to love these books as a kid, particularly the Mystery ones. Although upon re-reading them as an adult they are terribly sexist and racist. Mark Jeays

For good or bad such were the times Mark though they remain great children's books - the ones i didn't wear to pieces reading so much are safely stored away for my own future kids to read one day.

Paul Melville Austin

Should the attitude of Enid Blyton Ltd toward fan sites ("Shut down or we'll sue you, claiming copyright infringement and libel" even if the information is reasonably accurate, and works are used fairly) be documented? --Damian Yerrick

Didn't EB play tennis in the nude? -- Tarquin

EB's real name is Darryl Waters. I think someone should put that on the page. Also, I remember reading somewhere that she used to mistreat her own children.

Waters was her second married name: see [1] for more biography. Charles Matthews 09:10, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] EB's writing quality

The main reason for the withdrawal of Blyton books from school libraries was actually very little to do with racism or sexism, it was far more connected with the fact that Blyton simply didn't write very well, and her use of English is rather poor. The tabloids seized upon this as another example of "Loony Lefty Political Correctness", but the racism and sexism aspect was certainly more of an afterthought than anything else.

Maybe. Told that the critics had panned Sgt Pepper, John Lennon remarked I never read the critics, I run them over with my white Rolls-Royce. Blyton's writing looks pretty good to me, and to many millions of children and their parents. I find the PC story a lot more credible than the claim that she didn't write well, but I predict that she will have the last and longest laugh on both issues. IMO her critics, on both grounds, have mainly shown that they didn't understand what she wrote. Andrewa 16:24, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

It was certainly the librarians. Her books grew out of her teaching background and 'reading schemes', so she was very self-conscious about vocabulary levels in different age groups. The article should add material on her early life, to expand on that. Charles Matthews 12:53, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

That sounds good. I'm not able to write much, my information comes mainly from the books I was given as a child, some of which I still have, see user:andrewa/Enid Blyton. Most of them were Famous Five and similar which I did not like at all but people kept giving them to me, possibly in the hope of educating me in what children ought to enjoy! I was reading chemistry books, Arthur Ransome and Carl Barks comics mainly at that age. I have also used my mother's memories of using Blyton's teaching material in a primary school in England in the late 1940s, but I have to be a bit wary of wandering into original research there.

My suspicion is that the reason that Blyton's books sold so well (and still do) is that she was 'way ahead of her time in her approach. The Teletubbies was based on a scholarly analysis of the way very young children speak. That's great, but in other ways, big deal. Blyton (and many billions of grandmothers) did it instinctively. Andrewa 00:58, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] birthyear?

on top it says it's 1897, the category is 1896 births though - can someone clarify?

[edit] NZ library ban

'This gave rise to the first rumour of a New Zealand 'library ban' on Blyton’s books, a recurrent press canard'

I grew up in NZ and as a child I do remember there being no Enid Blyton books in the school or public library. When I asked about this, I was told they were banned. This was back in about 1990. They were finally unbanned towards the end of the 90's. Any other Kiwi's back me up on this one? I would change the artical myself, but it could be the fact that the public libraries I went to just happened to have a ban on the books and it might not have been NZ wide.

= 'artical'?

You would have to give a reliable reference. Some librarians simply objected to buying Blyton books, it seems, because they wanted children to read something more literary. Budget decisions are not 'bans', as such. Charles Matthews 21:55, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Gollywogs

The article claims that only one Gollywog appears as a villain in one Noddy book. However I remember as a child reading a Noddy story in which there was a gang of Golllywogs patrolling the woods and harrassing people. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.71.19.187 (talk • contribs) 15:30, 11 September 2006.

I had a nearly complete Noddy book set when I was a child - so we're talking over 35 years ago. As I recall the golliwog was frquently a villain of the piece. I also recall that some time during my teens the books were PC'd up and republished, largely without the golliwogs, and with other characters substituted. Cain Mosni 15:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Controversies

The "controversies" section needs a major rewrite - it reads like an editorial opinion piece. 217.155.20.163 21:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Completely agree (SW)

[edit] step-parents

isn't it odd that EB re-named her children to their step-father's name, but in almost all the Famous Five books, she slags off step parents and step parenting. (nankai, a step-dad) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 125.239.42.209 (talk) 20:33, 13 March 2007 (UTC).