What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

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Rob Houghton
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Rob Houghton »

Courtenay wrote:Just started reading The Naughtiest Girl Again — only a few chapters in and I'm eager to find out what happens next and see where the Elizabeth vs Robert conflict is going to go, but that'll have to wait till tomorrow... :wink:
I envy you, reading these for the first time! :-D
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
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(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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IceMaiden
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by IceMaiden »

I have just finished Ship of Adventure. I'm not sure how this one's rated, but I love it. The fact it's set abroad on a cruise ship has got a real holiday feel to it and is described so vividly you can almost feel yourself lying on a deckchair with the sun blazing down, listening to a mixture of the sea and other passengers talking.

I don't think the children are particularly clever at showing Mr Eppy the piece of map though, for all tbeir clever cunning and ideas in other books they really fluffed that up! I'm of the mind that they could have got the piece back quite easily too, if Philip had told his mother that Mr Eppy had taken their memento for school, she may have asked him to give it back to them immediately,or he'd feel pressured into doing so. But then that would ruin the story so I've no trouble overlooking it.

Special mention for the most unromantic marriage proposal ever, Bill and Allie made the decision to get wed with the same thought they'd give to sharing a car to the same location to save on petrol :lol: !
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Courtenay »

IceMaiden wrote: Special mention for the most unromantic marriage proposal ever, Bill and Allie made the decision to get wed with the same thought they'd give to sharing a car to the same location to save on petrol :lol: !
:lol: Having first read this series as an adult (and knowing what was coming anyway from the various spoilers I'd run across in these forums), I did pick up on little hints in the previous two or three books that Bill and Allie were getting rather close — which I might have missed noticing as a child — so I've always suspected the two of them HAD "thought of it before", but were perhaps still hesitating a little until Lucy-Ann's outburst pushed them over the edge, so to speak. :wink: Actually, now I think about it, unromantic though the scene is (and who wants to read mushy romantic stuff as a child, anyway? I certainly didn't :P ), it probably works better than Allie and Bill just coming in to declare it themselves out of nowhere.

Meanwhile, I've just finished The Naughtiest Girl Again. I loved it! :D Easily as enjoyable as the first book. Very fast-paced, too — once all the saga of Robert and then Kathleen was cleared up, I thought it was nearly the end of the book, but there was still plenty more that happened, including a surprise twist in the final chapter! Well, not something I couldn't have seen coming — given the title of the third book in the series :mrgreen: — but I had assumed that would take place at the start of the next book, not the end of this. I might have to move straight on and find out what happens next!
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by IceMaiden »

Courtenay wrote: :lol: Having first read this series as an adult (and knowing what was coming anyway from the various spoilers I'd run across in these forums), I did pick up on little hints in the previous two or three books that Bill and Allie were getting rather close — which I might have missed noticing as a child — so I've always suspected the two of them HAD "thought of it before", but were perhaps still hesitating a little until Lucy-Ann's outburst pushed them over the edge, so to speak. :wink: Actually, now I think about it, unromantic though the scene is (and who wants to read mushy romantic stuff as a child, anyway? I certainly didn't :P ), it probably works better than Allie and Bill just coming in to declare it themselves out of nowhere.
I first read the Adventure books as a child and I certainly wouldn't have picked up on any little hints then, which is understandable. However, I've also read them several times as an adult, and still haven't, which isn't very good :oops: . Maybe I'm a bit naive :lol: ,but I've never read or seen anything to suggest they'd thought of marriage until that paragraph at the end of Ship, which is possibly why it seems so spur of the moment decision rather than natural progression. Incidentally, I wouldn't want to read mushy romantic stuff as an adult either :P .
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I'm just an old fashioned girl with an old fashioned mind
Not sophisticated, I'm the sweet and simple kind
I want an old fashioned house, with an old fashioned fence
And A̶n̶ ̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶f̶a̶s̶h̶i̶o̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶a̶i̶r̶e̶
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Courtenay »

Well, it's only very subtle hints, like at the start of The Sea of Adventure when Allie says, after the mysterious phone call from Bill: "Of course I knew it was Bill. I'd know his voice anywhere." Others have picked up on the fact that in Mountain, Bill and Allie come down for breakfast together much later than the children — I didn't notice that when I first read it, but one could read something into that... :wink: But if I hadn't already found out from spoilers in discussions here that they do get married, I don't know if I would have guessed just from those little details. I certainly wouldn't have as a child.
IceMaiden wrote:Incidentally, I wouldn't want to read mushy romantic stuff as an adult either :P .
Me neither (except of course for Jane Austen, who isn't mushy). :mrgreen:
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by pete9012S »

Enid Blyton. The Mountain of adventure
They all went downstairs just as Mrs. Evans was setting the last touches to the breakfast-table. It was loaded almost as much as the supper-table the night before.

Jugs of creamy milk stood about, warm from the milking, and big bowls of raspberries had appeared again. “I shan’t know what to have,” groaned Jack, sitting down with Kiki on his shoulders.

“I can smell eggs and bacon and there’s cereal to have with raspberries and cream and ham and tomatoes and gosh, is that cream cheese? Cream cheese for breakfast, how super!”
The children made an extremely good meal before Bill or Mrs. Mannering came down. The Evans’ had had theirs already in fact they seemed to have done a day’s work, judging by the list of things that Evans talked about he had cleaned out the pigs, groomed the horses, milked the cows, fetched in the eggs, been to see the cow-herd and a dozen other things besides.
Mrs. Mannering and Bill appeared at that moment, looking fresh and trim after their good night’s sleep in the sharp mountain air. “Any breakfast left for us?” said Bill with a grin. Mrs. Evans hurried to fry bacon and eggs again, and soon the big kitchen was full of the savoury smell.
Don't know how I missed this as a child. Well done to the person that originally noticed this. Who was it?
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Courtenay »

Not only that, but "looking fresh and trim after their good night's sleep in the sharp mountain air" might be read as suggesting they'd slept somewhere outdoors after a bit of frolicking under the stars... :mrgreen: :wink:
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by IceMaiden »

:shock: Gah Courtenay, stop tainting my beloved innocent childhood stories!! :twisted: :P

Anyway, I'm reading Circus and their now happily married and tied up together in the bushes courtesy of Gussy's kidnappers :mrgreen: . I love Circus, possibly because it's the first Adventure book I read (and it was nice to finally read those first missing chapters!) so I have a soft spot for it. I find it an exciting book, Jack trying to find his way around all alone in a strange country, joining the circus, exploring the castle, the daring escape and then hiding in the circus, I remember finding it all so thrilling and enticing. It reminds me of The Sound of Music actually, with the escaping, enlisting help to escape and being searched by those determined to get who their after. It's also interesting to note how unlike circus/fair folk in the Famous Fives, who are unwelcoming and unfriendly from the off, these are the complete opposite, friendly, kind, helpful, willing straight away to help Jack and have them all hiding in the camp.

I have found a couple of what I presume are printing errors in my copy, on page 207-208 Jack is referred to as Philip, and Gussy alternates a couple of times between 'Gussy' and 'Gussie'! I don't know if this is only this particular edition that does this or if it's been corrected. Maybe, like Julian and Dick in 'Hike', Jack and Philip are destined to never be altered :lol: .
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I'm just an old fashioned girl with an old fashioned mind
Not sophisticated, I'm the sweet and simple kind
I want an old fashioned house, with an old fashioned fence
And A̶n̶ ̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶f̶a̶s̶h̶i̶o̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶a̶i̶r̶e̶
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Rob Houghton
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Rob Houghton »

Although I hover between Sea, Valley and Circus as to which my favourite Adventure book is, Circus is probably the book I enjoy most, for all the reasons you suggest, IceMaiden. I love the menacing start, where Enid builds the suspense brilliantly, and the hiding out and disguising, and Bill being disguised too, as well as the nail-biting scenes in the castle and the thrilling escape (even if it is a bit unlikely!) I often feel its the most adult book of the series in many ways, dealing as it does with the attempted overthrowing of a king. 8)
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

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Rob Houghton wrote: I often feel its the most adult book of the series in many ways, dealing as it does with the attempted overthrowing of a king. 8)
Funnily enough, you've just reminded me that for a while as a child, I was adamant that this book was the last in the series for that reason. Even when the books themselves said that Circus was the 7th and River was the 8th in the series, my own personal canon had to swap them around, and I did keep re-reading them in my preferred order. My reasoning was that anyone can dig up an old temple - but to interact with the actual King of a country had to be the absolute pinnacle of a child's life! Also, at the end, Kiki mixed up her lines and Jack said something like "Sign of old age." I took that to be Enid's subtle hint that these characters we'd grown to love were getting older, the children would soon become adults, and now was the time to say goodbye to them. :cry:

I used to over-analyse things, even back then! :D
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Courtenay »

Stephen wrote:Also, at the end, Kiki mixed up her lines and Jack said something like "Sign of old age."
I don't have the books with me to check, but I'm pretty sure that's actually at the end of River. :wink: I do agree Circus has the stronger and more exciting plot, though. It's about my equal favourite in the series (with Sea.
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Stephen »

Courtenay wrote:I don't have the books with me to check, but I'm pretty sure that's actually at the end of River. :wink:
Oops, it seems that you're absolutely right! I guess that was one of the counter-arguments going through my 10/11 year old head. Perhaps Enid Blyton and everyone were right after all in saying that River was the final book. However, Kiki's "God save the King!" would still have been a great epitaph to this series!
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Stephen »

I've just started my most comprehensive Blyton marathon in adulthood, and plan to read every one I own in whatever order they come out the box! I've just done the Rubadub and Rat-a-Tat Mysteries. And now, it's something very different because it's Stories For Bedtime. An old favourite of mine that I always remembered for teaching me something about pre-Decimalization! (One Little Match)
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by pete9012S »

Stephen wrote:I've just started my most comprehensive Blyton marathon in adulthood, and plan to read every one I own in whatever order they come out the box!
Just love that idea - so fresh and varied. I haven't got the book you're reading now - sounds good.
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Re: What Enid Blyton book are you reading right NOW!

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

'One Little Match' is a chilling cautionary tale - one of my son's favourites when he was little. My own favourites from Stories for Bedtime are 'Connie's Curious Candle' (an atmospheric story with a memorable alliterative title), 'The Two Cross Boys' (funny and clever) and 'A Shock for Lucy Ann!' (deliciously alarming). It's a great collection of tales, beautifully illustrated.
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