#enid blyton

[alwaystuesday]

Five Start Armageddon

This week’s prompt in the GO Reference Library study club was the Them. And this immediately popped into my head! I loved the Famous Five as a kid, and Eileen Soper, who illustrated them, made such lovely art.

Edit: This is now available as a print on my InPrnt store - currently with 25% off!

[geese-in-a-frock-coat]

I'm working on something about the inadvertent queerness of Enid Blyton's works. So if you have absolutely anything to say on this matter, up to and including:

the transess of George Kirrin

Bill unorthodox gender presentation

Bill and Clarissa

The lesbian undertones in both Malory towers and St Clares

Adaptations adding/ removing queerness

anything else

Please, please, please talk to me about this in any way shape or form. I would love to hear anything you have to say.

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Dogs 2

Dodie Smith: i've got another story about pongo and missus King: ah do the dogs go on another fun adventure? Smith: no this time aliens put all humans to sleep and give dogs psychic powers King: Lovecraft: Barker: Poe: Koontz: WOWWWW Koontz: BEST STORY EVER!

Smith: ok so all humans are catatonic now and there's only psychic dogs Smith: and the dogs think 'oh i bet cruella de vil is behind this' Smith: 'we should go murder her' Smith: 'like, we should just go fucking murder her' Smith: 'put a fuckin bullet in her head'

Smith: but the dogs find out that cruella de vil isn't actually behind it Smith: so that puts a crimp in their plan to murder her Smith: then sirius the dog star comes to earth Smith: like the literal star

Smith: you know, he has the super power to appear as any dog breed Koontz: [sullenly] i wish i had that power Frank Belknap Long: dean remind me to talk to you after the story's done Koontz: no i don't want a fursuit, i want to do it for real!!

Smith: so sirius the dog star is all 'god i'm so lonely, i wish i had a dog' Smith: 'i wish i had ALL the dogs' Smith: 'would you dogs like to come live with me in space' Smith: 'like where laika lives' Smith: 'in a big nebula with a lot of space to run around'

Smith: so sirius is all 'dogs of earth, would you like to come live with me in space' Smith: 'WHO WANTS TO GO OUT TO SPACE??? WHO WANTS TO GO OUT TO SPACE???' Smith: 'WHOS A GOOD BOY??? WHOS A GOOD BOY???'

Smith: sirius is all 'you should all come to space and live with me in space' Smith: 'you'll know true bliss in space' Smith: 'and also you'll avoid complete eradication in nuclear apocalyse' Smith: 'cuz, oh yeah, that's gonna happen btw'

Smith: if they choose to go to space Smith: then all memory of dogs on earth will be erased Koontz: no Smith: no one will remember that dogs ever existed Koontz: NO! Smith: it will be as if earth was always a dog-free planet Koontz: NOOO!!!!!!

Smith: now the dogs of earth have to make a weighty decision Smith: will they go to space or will they stay loyal to their masters? Koontz: oh god oh god Koontz: please say they stay!! Smith: so the dogs decide… Koontz: yeah?? yeah???

Smith: the dogs decide… Koontz: WHAT DO THEY DECIDE!?!?!? Koontz: I NEED TO KNOW!!! Smith: the dogs decide… Koontz: AUGHHHH!!!!!

Smith: the dogs decide to stay on earth because, even though earth is imperfect, it carries the promise that maybe, someday, every good dog can find a home Koontz: b-but they're ALL good dogs! Smith: exactly Koontz: Koontz: whoaaaaaa

King: wow uh King: that's some story King: not what i expected Barker: oh that's british kids lit for you Barker: it's all bonkers Roald Dahl: ee hee hee Barker: i mean Barker there ya go Barker: case in point

King: really? all of it Barker: oh yeah trust me [meanwhile] Beatrix Potter: my story is mr thumpybunny minds the shop Enid Blyton: my story is Giggles the happy gnome runs afoul of an irishman JK Rowling: Rowling: you know what i'm going to sssay

[godzilla-reads]

This book was on track to being recycled because a child had torn a couple pages out and it was in rough condition. Luckily, I love this writer’s fairy stories so I took it out of the bin, taped the pages back together, and got to take it home.

🧚 The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton

[georgekirrin]

For those wondering who George Kirrin is: may I present 8-year-old me's hero, a 1940s children's book character

[callonpeevesie]

the horse lesbians! i love them i miss malory towers. also gave clarissa her glasses because Reasons

[booksandchainmail]

I've been thinking again about the ways in which Malory Towers and St. Clare's handle their villains.

To give a bit of context, these are each girls' boarding school series written by Enid Blyton: they follow the same general structure (each book introduces a couple new girls to kickstart the plot) and have a lot of recycled character concepts. The main difference is that Malory Towers (which was written later) has much more continuity: along with various gimmick characters who fade in and out between books (or keep appearing if their bit is fun enough) it has a core cast of four characters who can roughly be described as protagonist, antagonist, love interest, and romantic false lead. Meanwhile St. Clare's theoretically has twin protagonists who essentially stop appearing after book 2 in favor of characters with more interesting gimmicks.

In both series, each book has a villain: some girl who is scheming/bullying/manipulative/stealing/etc, and who gets discovered and disgraced at the end. In St. Clare's these villains generally only appear in one book; in Malory Towers it is always Gwendoline.

There's a bit in one of the early St. Clare's books where the reformed villain gets asked not to return to the school next year: not as a punishment, but so that she doesn't have to do the hard work of growing into a better person in an environment where everyone already hates her.

This does not happen for Gwendoline. She comes into the first book and within a few chapters has made most of the cast her enemy, and then keeps it up for another five books. And she does just keep pulling shit! Her classmates don't like her for valid reasons, and she never really tries to be less of a bully, and I don't blame any of the rest of the cast for not wanting to spend time with someone who keeps stabbing them in the back, and is also generally unpleasant.

But on the other hand. She's a twelve year old who proceeds to spent every hour of the day, most days of the year, for six years on end, surrounded by people who hate her. How the hell could she have ever improved? All she ever sees from her classmates is that they scorn and exclude her, her teachers disdain her, new classmates only spend time with her until they get to know the other girls... What reason does she have to think that doing better would mean getting treated better? What reason do we have to think this?

Anyways. I think about this sometimes in terms of restorative justice, and the conflict between "everyone deserves community/socialization/friendship" and "no one is obligated to forgive you or welcome you back". Sometimes the only solution is to just give people the chance to start fresh!

[sincericida]

Cameras roll at Shinfield Studios on The Magic Faraway Tree - The Knowledge Online

Simon Farnaby (Wonka, Paddington 2) has adapted the much-loved children’s classic with Ben Gregor directing. The story centres on children Beth, Fran and Joe as they encounter an array of eccentric, magical characters at the top of an enchanted tree.

Andrew Garfield and Claire Foy star, with recent casting reports saying Nicola Coughlan, Mark Heap, Jessica Gunning, Simon Russell Beale and Oliver Chris are also on board

[skyriderwednesday]

So George, huh? This is the first time we meet her, as she was Off Somewhere for hours when her cousins and their parents arrived and seemingly snuck into the house after everyone else went to bed (she's eleven, btw).

Anyway, here we have her first line of dialogue being "No. I'm not Georgina.", and then her saying "I hate being a girl. I won't be."

Then we have some very 1940s gender attitudes, but then for the first time we see that being perceived as a boy makes George extremely happy.

Also the extremely relatable Gender Experience of cutting your hair off without your parents' permission, and thinking that everybody must hate being their assigned gender.

[all-action-all-picture]

Five Go Off To Camp by Enid Blyton (1897-1968). The seventh book in The Famous Five series. Interior illustrations by Betty Maxey. I remember this Five book being one of my favourites. First published 1948, this edition was published in 1978 with a photo cover to tie in to the 26 episode TV series. My recollection is it was shown on a Sunday afternoon and I enjoyed it at the time. Catchy theme tune as well. Don't know if it was ever repeated. Knight Books, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton.

[m00nch1ld333]

my pretty lil shelf 👼🏻

[fruitandflowercrowns]

wow!!

source

[hermerriday]

All-girls boarding school at Malory Towers (2020)

[could-transition-save-him]

George from The Famous Five (Enid Blyton books)

Reasoning: Listen. I, as a little transmasc egg, read about him and thought "oh, just like me! :)" and didn't think more of it. Then, about a decade or two later, I suddenly remembered him and holy shit, he was straight up trans. Like it's not even coding, he literally identifies as a boy, experiences gender dysphoria, experiences gender euphoria, he... he's literally just straight up trans and nobody even told us when we were little. This is a trans character from 1942. He's literally trans. Save him

[perplexingluciddreams]

I read some more of my book in bed with my book light. It is the second Famous Five book.

It is just like I used to do almost every night when I was younger!! Lie in bed, all of me under the covers and use my clip-on book light or a torch to read 😄!

Sometimes I would get so sucked in to the story that I would finish a whole book! I would be yawning every other second by the end, usually. This time I had to really stop myself at the end of a chapter - not even let myself read the title of the next chapter! It is so easy to think "one more chapter, just one more!".

Anyway, bed time now. It feels so nice to do this just how I used to for years and years. It brings me so much comfort and makes me feel so safe, in a familiar world of a familiar book with familiar characters. And the familiar, comforting way of snuggling down in my bed and diving headfirst into a book by the light of a torch.

[marietheran-archived]

I used to love the Malory Towers and St. Clare's series as a kid and I still think of them with fondness, but I've come to realise I was (and am) exactly the sort of person who would be set up as a negative example by Blyton, derided and possibly "fixed" by the end of the book.

I mean:

hates sports - check ✓

would be homesick and cry - check ✓

would likely be annoyed at being sent to boarding school - check (though I do think I'd have been wiser than to try and make myself as unhappy as possible)

likes to dress fancy - check ✓

never follows rules and doesn't like to be ordered about by people the social hierarchy puts above her (teachers) - check ✓

asocial (autism) - check ✓

Maybe I'd be lucky and they'd chalk it up to my being a foreigner? Or, for that matter, a war refugee because that's what a Polish girl in late 1940s England would be? (What would I be doing in such an upper class school in that case? Early on, I'd have likely managed a scholarship but my grades dropped considerably around 16...)

Anyway, no point to this, only that those books, for all the fun they provided child-me with, do have considerable faults.