The Enid Blyton Society

In the 1921 Playbox annual, there is a short story entitled Molly and the Moon Boys. A little girl called Molly gets blown away by her brother's kite and ends up on the moon and meets a crowd of 'moon-boys'. The illustrations show them with tiny bodies and huge, bald heads. They sing a song about Molly which reminded me a little of the songs Saucepan Man used to make up, although this one was in the style of a limerick.

I'm not really suggesting that Enid read the story and it inspired her to write the Faraway Tree characters, but I did briefly wonder if she may have come across it and tucked it away in her 'undermind'.

Interesting. As a child reading the Faraway Tree series, I did wonder about Moonface. It was said he was called that because his face was big and round like the moon but I don't think the story ever said what Moonface was. It was said Silky was an elf, then there was Mr Whatisname the gnome, and the angry pixie, all in the tree, and Dame Washalot. I used to wonder what sort of magical character Moonface was.

As children, I do remember a rather peculiar conversation I was having with my sister about Moonface. He's described as having a big, round face so the reader (and illustrator) assume his head is spherical. But what if it was just his face that was round, and his head was actually disc-shaped? So we were drawing some rather disturbing pictures of him side-on with a stick thin head, and nose sticking out.

Strange kids!

Well, there's the power of imagination for you! I know it's been discussed before how the original illustrator of the Faraway Tree books, Dorothy Wheeler, drew Moon-Face as a sort of elf-like or gnome-like character who happens to be mostly bald with a roundish head, but otherwise "normal":



... whereas Rene Cloke and all other successive illustrators have drawn him with a literally moon-like head, completely spherical and hairless and sometimes even slightly glowing:




I grew up with the Rene Cloke illustrations and always assumed Enid did mean his face or head to be literally "like the moon", but now that I have the older editions, I wonder if that was really her intention?

I'm not sure what Enid's intention was...but I certainly prefer the Rene Cloke depiction, as I've mentioned previously. I can appreciate the Dorothy Wheeler version, but a man with a head that is perfectly round like a moon makes more sense to me, and is much more magical! It's become the definitive way of depicting him, which is interesting. Generations have grown up over the last 50 years only knowing the round moon-headed Moonface!

Stephen wrote:As children, I do remember a rather peculiar conversation I was having with my sister about Moonface. He's described as having a big, round face so the reader (and illustrator) assume his head is spherical. But what if it was just his face that was round, and his head was actually disc-shaped? So we were drawing some rather disturbing pictures of him side-on with a stick thin head, and nose sticking out.

Strange kids!

I always imagined his head to be two dimensional, like a disc. Oops.

There are actually quite a few illustrations depicting his head from the side view, which shows its spherical.

I do wish Rene Cloke's depictions were in the Cave - as for many of us they are the definitive versions!

They are for The Folk of the Faraway Tree, but not for the others, strangely enough! Maybe if Tony's arm could be twisted a little further (gently, of course)...

Ah yes - didn't know that! Thanks Courtenay.

here's a good image proving that Moonface's head was spherical, lol! -

Courtenay wrote:They are for [img=https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/boo ... raway+Tree]The Folk of the Faraway Tree[/img], but not for the others, strangely enough! Maybe if Tony's arm could be twisted a little further (gently, of course)...

Looks like you used the [img] code instead of the [url] code, Courtenay.

I did too — thanks, BB. Corrected now.