Listen to Sophie

[Tony Summerfield]

You have possibly read somewhere (our Message Board!) that Sophie Smallwood is writing a new Noddy book, which will be illustrated by Robert Tyndall and will be published on November 22nd next year to commemorate Noddy's 60th Anniversary.

Sophie was interviewed yesterday on Radio 5 Live and if I have got the link right you can hear what she had to say about it. This is a three hour programme and you need to move it to 2.52 as the interview took place in the last five minutes of the programme.

This is only available for another six days.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Just listened to the interview - thanks for that, Tony. Interesting that children tend to read Noddy earlier these days (or perhaps have the stories read to them) and therefore the text of the older Noddy books is considered to be too long. Must admit that, from a "reading aloud" point of view, I do find some of the original Noddy books rather long-winded!

Anita

[Julie2owlsdene]

Nice to listen to that interview, with Sophie, even though it was a short one. She says its her first venture, and she's going to keep it in the style of her grandmother, which will be a nice tribute.

I never read any Noddy books myself, but its nice to know that Sophie will keep it going.

[Moonraker]

Must admit that, from a "reading aloud" point of view, I do find some of the original Noddy books rather long-winded!

Yes, Anita; we've got the message - there's no need to slag the books off in every post....

[Anita Bensoussane]

You're right. Once every two or three posts would probably be ample.

Anita

[RDMorrell]

Would this prospective book by Sophie Smallwood be the first Noddy "continuation novel"? Although various authors have tackled other series by Enid with a greater or lesser degree of success, I'm not sure whether anyone has done Noddy before, at least not in any sort of official capacity.

[Tony Summerfield]

Would this prospective book by Sophie Smallwood be the first Noddy "continuation novel"? Although various authors have tackled other series by Enid with a greater or lesser degree of success, I'm not sure whether anyone has done Noddy before, at least not in any sort of official capacity.

It depends what you call a novel, but there have been dozens of Noddy continuation stories, and all have been officially sanctioned. None of these are in the Cave as they are too numerous to list, but I believe that even this new book will be well short of the 60 pages that I have used as the benchmark in our Novels/Novelettes section.

[RDMorrell]

That's very interesting. Approximately how many Noddy continuation stories are there? Can you name one or two off the top of your head?

Of course, Enid's original Noddy stories have all been revised (in the name of political correctness). But I'm more interested in Noddy stories by other authors.

[Tony Summerfield]

I have absolutely no idea on numbers, as I have taken little interest in Noddy books written by authors other than Enid Blyton, but to give some idea, if you stick Noddy into 'search' on Amazon it comes up with 1785 results!

[RDMorrell]

if you stick Noddy into 'search' on Amazon it comes up with 1785 results!

EGAD!

[Moonraker]

Make Way For Noddy has aired on Five (UK TV channel) for seemingly years, none of the stories to my certain knowledege has been written by Enid Blyton.

[Bumpy Dog]

If this is to be a new Noddy book then I for one would like to see it a similar length to the originals. For young children the length of the early Noddy books is a great stepping stone towards reading longer novels.

For bedtime reading the originals are split into chapters just right for reading one per night to complete a book in about a week, with plenty of cliffhangers along the way.

It would also be great to see "Look for the next Noddy book" at the end.