[Malcolm Armsteen]

The original objections to Blyton from English teachers and Librarians was that the books were completely unchallenging - which is why kids liked them, of course, and they wanted to see kids reading stuff that fired their imaginations and stretched/developed their language skill.

[D.C. Harrison]

I'm inclined to agree with Ian Dury when it comes to one particular Enid Blyton character...

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[Lord Brett]

Perhaps the consensus is that Blyton is a classic children's author who happened not to write any books which might individually be described as classics.

[Andy McDandy]

I still feel that for many, 'classic' means 'something I remember from my childhood'.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

It's a much abused term.

[Picklechu2]

I read them all as a kid. Famous Five, Secret Seven, The Nouns of Adventure. Fondly remembered!

[Kreuzberger]

I remember quite clearly. I'll have been probably about six when I got halfway through Mystery Moor and chucked it. It struck me as frightfully dreary and from another era even at that tender age some forty-five years ago.

My own kids showed no interest either whilst reads like Treasure Island were consumed with absolute glee.

I'm beginning to think that the mail simply wants to believe that Blyton is classic children's literature (short tryzahs, much yomping etc etc) but really it's just a pile of irrelevant bollocks.

[Daley Mayle]

I'm a straight white male and... I don't feel put upon at all

(And I enjoyed the Famous Five books when I was a kid - sorry!)

My No.2 granddaughter is at the mild end of the Asperger's scale and found it difficult to concentrate so didn't enjoy reading. Yes, she could read but could not lose herself in a book like her older sister. She stayed with us last summer and we had brought down from the loft children's books owned by my wife and my daughter. In the box were a couple of Famous Five books and she started reading them and enjoyed the books. That Christmas we bought her a boxed set of the complete Famous Five series. She is now turned on to reading and her behaviour is much better (maybe a coincidence) and is developing an artistic bent - probably takes after her granddad <preen>.

[youngian]

By the late 70s Blyton was a joke even among the most undemanding children. Even the Comic Strip spoofs wouldn't strike a chord among children today let alone a twat like Noddy.

[Daley Mayle]

Oh, and while I'm at it my wife had a golliwog when she was a child as did my daughter. When a kiddywink I collected marmalade labels and collected golliwog badges. Never once did any of us associate golliwogs with black people until we were told we should be outraged at them - probably 30 years ago. Comics contained cartoons that depicted Arabs as stereotypes, I'm thinking Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (Dandy? I can't remember), but I never associated them with people from Arabia or any foreigner. Desperate Dan had a gun, I never felt the urge to shoot anyone. A reward for doing something worthy in the Bash Street Kids was a 'slap up meal' - usually a heaped plate full of mash and studded with sausages - and I never became a glutton*. Children can tell the difference between the world of fantasy and real life and prejudices usually come handed down by parents and association with contemporaries.

If this sounds a bit Littlejohn then sometimes, just sometimes, he has a waffa-thin point.


* Liar.

[Daley Mayle]

By the late 70s Blyton was a joke even among the most undemanding children. Even the Comic Strip spoofs wouldn't strike a chord among children today let alone a twat like Noddy.

That is because the 70/80s generation of comedians' main genre was taking the piss out of anything that wasn't current and edgy. I should think the The Young Ones would still make the current generation of teenagers laugh because of its slapstick nature (this is timeless) although references might go over their heads (I'm thinking of SPG the hamster).

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I once made a Bash Street slap-up feed (pile of mash studded with bangers) for my kids...

And yes, kids can be much more perceptive, nuanced and ironic than people give them credit for. As seen in all those 'silly answers kids give' Facebook statuses. Kids in 'kids do irony' horror!

[Big Rob]

To be fair to Enid Blyton, I did make the schoolboy error of reading a second Dean Koontz novel.

[Kreuzberger]

I once made a Bash Street slap-up feed (pile of mash studded with bangers) for my kids...

Just the once? I find that a little hard to believe.

[youngian]

Oh, and while I'm at it my wife had a golliwog when she was a child as did my daughter. When a kiddywink I collected marmalade labels and collected golliwog badges. Never once did any of us associate golliwogs with black people until we were told we should be outraged at them - probably 30 years ago. Comics contained cartoons that depicted Arabs as stereotypes, I'm thinking Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (Dandy? I can't remember), but I never associated them with people from Arabia or any foreigner.

I recall black kids being called golliwogs only to well along with little black Sambo, as read to us by primary school teachers. This was in a country where the BBC saw fit to introduce Minstrels onto prime time TV around about the time that Martin Luther King had a dream.

But I suppose this is all hindsight. I came across some old Warlord and Battle comics in which the British were single handedly winning WW2 way into the 70s. Lets just say the Japanese did not come out too well. To be fair around about the late 70s British comic artist were moving quite rapidly to challenge militarist and imperialist attitudes that permeated post-war children's comics. Although the anti-Fascist satire of Judge Dredd may have escaped me until my teens.