Series Book Art.co.uk - Major update to Blyton section...

[Boodi]

No, I never read the books in order, and usually made my selection on the basis of the title or the illustration on the front cover. I don't think I paid too much attention to the blurb on the back cover.

[Rob Houghton]

Must admit I always 'judged a book by its cover' and usually chose books because of that. The only exceptions I can think of were 'Tom's Midnight Garden', 'The Railway Children', 'The Enchanted Castle' and 'The Little Silver Trumpet', all of which I read simply because they had been on television!

I remember buying 'The Mystery that Never Was' as a paperback, purely because I thought the cover was exciting - the story, however, proved to be a big disappointment!

I also bought an old hardback copy of 'The Rilloby Fair Mystery' with a dustwrapper from my primary school jumble sale because I liked the 'olden day' look of the cover - that's one story I definitely WASN'T disappointed by, and it's still one of my favourites.

As for blurbs,I particularly noticed the blurb on the inside flap of 'Snowball the Pony' while I was writing my article for 'The Journal'. It gave away practically every main plot point in the story:

'Snowball was just a small black shetland pony with a funny name when he came to his new home. He was lonely and he missed his mother, but Willie, Sheila and Timmy were kind to him. soon Snowball grew quite cheeky. He was rude to the horses and chased the pigs and hens - until he was chased by an old sow. He gave the children rides, but when a bad boy tried to ride him Snowball tipped him in a pond.

'He was a naughty pony, but he was clever - one day he fetched the papers, and he gave rides for charity at a bazaar. All the children who love Enid Blyton's stories will love Snowball too.'

Yes...but you don't need to read the book to know what happens, because EVERY incident is covered by the blurb!!

[pete9012S]

Just enjoyed looking through these illustrations again:

Series Book Art - Internal Illustrations
Enid Blyton

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[timv]

Looking at this collection of artwork reminds me that my first experience of the Five Find Outers series was in this Armada format, with the Dylan Roberts internal illustrations. Hence my first visual idea of Fatty and co. was DR's (and Mary Gernat's); similarly with the books in the Secret series.

I seem to remember that DR's (1965?) version of the latter portrayed Jack Mike, Peggy and Nora as somewhat older than the Harry Rountree late 1930s version - around 12-14 rather than 9-10. Presumably the Rountree version was influenced by the usual age of the intended readership of the 'Sunny Stories' magazine where Enid first serialised 'The Secret Island'. The Rountree covers particularly seem to fit children of around 7-8 who had been reading Enid's fairy stories and Brer Rabbit rather than the age the Famous Five stories were shortly to be aimed at - though having children of 9-10 rambling around Africa and the Carpathian Mountains in the Secret series was perhaps more 'wish fulfilment' than realism!
I remember that the first Secret book I read, Spiggy Holes, had a Dylan Roberts picture of the children fishing in their boat in the Secret Island lake towards the end of the story while Prince Paul on the shore watches out for Diaz and Luis . This had Jack looking more like Fatty's age and appearance than he appears in the Rountree illustrations. A deliberate editorial effort to 'reboot' the intended readership age to that of readers of other Armada 'mild thrillers' (eg the Malcolm Saville Lone Pine series) from the younger age-group of 'Sunny Stories'?

[Lenoir]

Talking about age groups, it struck me that the post about the art work was made over 10 years ago, so someone born that same day would now be in the age group for these books!