The Enid Blyton Society

Get well soon, Fiona.

A lovely day spent roaming the locations for the TV series 'Heartbeat' in Goathland, Yorkshire. The highlight was definitely taking the Steam Train from Goathland over the moors to Whitby. The weather was kind as well, which is always a bonus!

It sounds as if you've had a great day, Number 6. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Thanks, Eddie. A fab day all round!

We have just returned from a holiday in Ireland (Ennis, County Clare). Beautiful place and wonderful people but no old Enid Blyton books anywhere. Did find some modern paperback versions in Irish.

The modern Irish paperbacks sound interesting and your holiday sounds great, Francis.

If I brush up my Irish I will buy one next time, Eddie! I wonder if they have been edited.

Sounds fab, Francis! Glad you had a great time. I've been to Ireland a few times before. It is beautiful. The paperbacks sound interesting, too. Maybe you should start collecting them!

Glad you had a nice holiday in Ireland Francis. I'm somewhat surprised to hear that Blyton is published in Irish though. Not a lot of people speak it so the market for children's books in that language must be tiny!

I would guess they encourage translations of great children's literature into Irish so that children who are learning the language will have good things to read in it!

I was just looking through books on eBay and came across the modern paperback edition of 'Five On A Hike Together' - which happens to be one of my favourite Famous Five books - and so what I'm doing now is feeling gob-smacked (as we say in Birmingham!) about how dire the cover is.

Sure enough I looked it up in The Cave. What a dreadful cover to one of the most exciting Famous Five books! Never mind the style of illustration (which we've often discussed before) - but what does the cover illustration actually say about the story inside? Nothing!

Awful, and on looking at the rest, they are all pretty ghastly. Some have a slight relationship to the story but the children look absolutely terrible - unkempt little ragamuffins!

Lucky Star wrote:Glad you had a nice holiday in Ireland Francis. I'm somewhat surprised to hear that Blyton is published in Irish though. Not a lot of people speak it so the market for children's books in that language must be tiny!

The western counties of Ireland often speak Irish as their first language and many churches offer Mass in the Irish language. I went to an unveiling of a statue to Michael Cusack and all the speeches were made in Irish and then English. Our guest house owner does a weekly radio programme in Irish.

Daisy wrote:Awful, and on looking at the rest, they are all pretty ghastly. Some have a slight relationship to the story but the children look absolutely terrible - unkempt little ragamuffins!

I agree! Although I'm not keen on the style of the illustrations, I'm constantly told today's children like them - but I still don't see why they are so bland, and don't give even a hint of the thrilling plots inside! These wouldn't have attracted me as a child, as I used to very much judge a book by its cover, and it doesn't look exciting at all!

Agree with Daisy about those covers which appear to be more like a comic than proper illustrations. It was so important for me as a child (and an adult!) to see a proper visualisation of my heroes.