Faraway Tree Books by Jacqueline Wilson

[Tony Summerfield]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Adventure- ... 651&sr=1-1

Article in the Daily Telegraph today!!

[Fiona1986]

I enjoyed Five Children and It by JW so will likely give this a go at some point too.

[Kate Mary]

I've read a couple of articles on this new Jacqueline Wilson book this afternoon, including in The Bookseller magazine. Jacqueline Wilson has done a number of re-writes of classic books including What Katy Did, Five Children and It and The Railway Children. I prefer the originals.

[Courtenay]

I wouldn't mind having a look to see a currently popular author's take on the Faraway Tree, but I very much doubt it'll be anywhere near as good as the originals — let alone still selling 80+ years after its first publication, as the original books are!!

[Jomo]

I’d like to look at it and see what a contemporary writer does with the characters and multiverse lands of the Faraway Tree. I am hopeful but prepared to be disappointed.

[Wolfgang]

So it's another try after the series "Silky and the rainbow feather" and its short lived series. Annoyingly the last three books haven't been published in German.

[Fiona1986]

I'm honestly embarrassed to be a Blyton fan sometimes. The amount of nonsense I've seen about this book this morning is shameful.

It is not a re-write of the original to make it 'woke' or 'politically correct'.

The book was JW's favourite book as a child and from what I can see she has written a new story with her own child characters. It is probably set in the modern day, as with Five Children and it and I rather like the idea that Moonface et al are immortal being, always living in the tree and that over the years many groups of children have discovered the secret and had adventures.

[Katharine]

My initial reaction was one of horror. I think it's well documented in other forums what my thoughts are on Jacqueline Wilson's books! I'm relieved to see this is a continuation type book, and not a re-write.

Personally, the idea of having her name on the same cover as Enid Blyton's I feel is probably somewhat misleading. From the few books of hers that I'm familiar with, I can't see how she can possibly write something that will be comparable to the originals.

Maybe I'm not in tune with modern youngsters, or maybe I've always been a bit different, but personally, if I read and enjoyed something by one author, and then came across another book supposedly about the same characters/setting, I'd find it hard to enjoy it as I doubt it would have the same 'feel' about it. The only books of Jacqueline Wilson's I've come across were full of 'gritty realism', which I wouldn't have thought appropriate to the Faraway Tree.

Maybe I'm doing her an injustice, and perhaps she is capable of altering her writing style to make it more in keeping with the gentle, magical world of the Faraway Tree.

Hopefully the fact that a modern 'acceptable' author has approved of Enid Blyton, it will help keep Enid's books in print.

[Tony Summerfield]

Those that haven't seen it might be interested in this article from the Daily Mail online which was posted this morning.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -Tree.html

There is a quote in the article from Alexandra Antscherl (who the Mail wrongly call Alexander unless they have corrected it by now!) who is in charge of all things 'Blyton' at Hachette Children's Books:-

"I knew that Jacqueline Wilson was a huge fan of these books in her early childhood, and with the 80th anniversary of the series coming in 2023 I realised this would be the ideal way to celebrate it."

Sadly she has already missed the 80th Anniversary which was in 2019, as The Enchanted Wood was published in May 1939, immediately after being serialised in Sunny Stories from October 1938 to May 1939.

[pete9012S]

Thank you Tony. Here is a short extract from the daily mail article:

What has Jacqueline Wilson changed in her version of Enid Blyton's classic?
Jacqueline Wilson's new version of the adventure book will see a number of changes to make it appear more modern. The Tracy Beaker author will strip out what is today deemed sexism and replace references with lessons for youngsters.

Children reading her novel will now be subject to a gender equality lecture instead of learning how people behaved and thought in the past. Mrs Wilson's book has not been released, but she has admitted to some changes compared to the 1943 original...

Blyton's book:

One of the characters Moon-Face asks Silky to help him with domestic tasks. He says during this time the boys are allowed to do something more entertaining.

Wilson's woke update:

But in the new novel he will be immediately reprimanded and given a lesson on gender equality. Mia also says in the modern world girls are as clever as boys and sometimes cleverer.

Blyton's book:

The children are free to adventure for days and nights without heading home to their parents, as also shown in the Famous Five and Secret Seven.

Wilson's woke update:

But the updated copy will be changed to reflect today's 'anxious' parents and their close watch over their youngsters.

Mrs Wilson played with the passing of time to get around this, showing the parents drinking coffee in the morning when their children leave, and still at it when they get back.

[Fiona1986]

Good god I hate the Daily Mail, they'll twist anything to suit their narrative.

[Katharine]

An interesting article. Good to see a well balance comment from Anita was included.

I wish I could fast forward 80 years or so and see firstly, if Jacqueline Wilson's books are still in print, and secondly, whether they have been updated at all.

I'm wondering why she felt it necessary to have a lecture about equality included in the book? Why not just have the characters doing things together? I don't particularly remember the original books showing Silky doing housework for Moonface, I do know that the children tended to do different chores, ie Jo did the garden, the girls made the beds, but in the updated version I read recently I think it shows all the children helping out around the house and garden without any lectures given about gender equality!

I'm also curious to know why the children's names were chosen. Personally, the only Milos I know of are all dogs, and I've never met anyone with the name Birdy! Assuming the children are aged between 7 and 10, a quick Google shows that the most popular names for children of that age group would be names such as Jack and George (popular with Enid) and Amelia and Poppy, although Mia does feature too. So if Ms Wilson wants to reflect 'authentic, relatable characters' why hasn't she chosen names that reflect the majority of children???

Actually, I'm surprised that fairy/fantasy stories are still being allowed to be written and published today. Surely it is wrong to tell children lies about discovering magical lands at the top of trees, and such books as Thomas the Tank engine - after all, it might frighten a child to think that a train could suddenly start talking, or decide to go off on a journey by itself, etc etc.

[Moonraker]

Enid Blyton Society blasts woke The Magic Faraway Tree rewrite: ‘Leave our classics alone’

You can read the Daily Express report here, including a quote from Anita!

[shadow]

I do like this quote

Wilson explained: “I think the first three Far Away Tree books were quite wonderful and I mean they have been gently over the years one or two things that people would question have been edited out.

One or two things!!! I think it's quite a bit more than that.

[Debbie]

I have to say I winced. I'm not desperately keen on her. One of my daughters loved her books, the other hated them. My first thought when I tried reading them was they were similar to the "growing up books" by people like Jean Ure, Judy Bloom etc that I read.

What don’t I like? I’m not sure. They’re perhaps a little too much misery-lit for children. You can guarantee that the children will have issues, the adults have issues and it won’t necessarily be resolved totally. I think though one of the things that marks it as different to the books I happily read in the 80s is that the heroine is quite often a gobby little brat. I often didn’t care whether they got their happy ending because they were such a brat getting it. The gobby brat will often get together with the bully or bullied (and often overweight) boy, as friendship rather than romantically, I'll add.

I also don't take the "I loved the books so much that I wanted to do an updated book". If you loved them so much, why not do a continuation story in the same mould? It's a bit like (looking at you "Swallows and Amazon"/"Little White Horse"/"Dark is Rising") when people take a much loved book, take the title and names of the characters and make a film which has very little to do with the original book. I always suspect the person has an idea and thinks "how can we sell this?" "I know, let's call it by the name of a popular book then people will come to see it." It's a way of manipulating people into coming and seeing a film they wouldn't otherwise have considered seeing.

But JW is popular in her own right. I have a lot of respect for her as a person and as a writer. Why is she piggy-backing on popular books? She could easily say, like her Katy book, that the inspiration for it was What Katie Did, but use a different family. But modernising it, still calling her Katy and making it a modern version etc? No, thank you.
Is she less popular now and it's a way of selling books? As far as I know that isn't the case. Has she run out of her own imagination? I hope that's not the case.

If EB is going to let continuation/imitation novels be published, then I'd far rather it was given to an unknown, give them a boost of their writing career, who is trying to write in the era in which it's set. (I feel similar about celebratories writing books) Yes, you can make the boys do the washing up, and the girls fix the car if you want, but do it in a normal way rather than with a fanfare. Let's have more of the wonderful books that people still love today both young and old. Not ones written with an agenda in mind.

<rant over>