Ponderings on my favourite Children's author - Enid Blyton

I have been re-reading a lot more EB every since D started reading them, and I was thinking today as to why it was/is such a fascination for me and other random take-offs from it. So here are all the grand facts I arrived at:

• I'm a big fan of the Fantasy Genre - Wheel of Time became my all-time favourite series when I discovered it rather late a couple of years back, and the person who finished the series - Brandon Sanderson is definitely my favourite current author and I will pick up any of his books that came out. I thought about it, and realized that Enid Blyton was probably my first ever exposure to this kind of writing. Ardent Fantasy fans don't kill me! But creating a world different from the one we live in, that you sometimes wish could be true - isn't that what this genre is all about ? :).

• Enid Blyton has written most or probably all of her stories especially the fairyland related ones with nearly only children as main characters. I was thinking - as an adult - if a fairy came up and spoke to me, I would probably be searching desperately for the wires holding her up. So yeah, kids are the only ones who still have that sense of wonder and can believably speak to fairies or follow a caterpillar or gnome to where they are taken. Makes complete sense.

• She had this ability to make food sound sooo scrumptious - I read her school series when I was a child and had no concept of what sausages or ginger beer or most of the items actually tasted like - but she made them sound so amazing!  What an amazing gift of prolific writing she had. 

• In spite of all the golliwog related debates, I think she remains the writer who writes the "cleanest" as far as I am concerned. It's one of the authors I know will introduce D to the world of wonder without me having to police what underlying messages might be in the book. Believe me, I'm far from paranoid but I do tend to worry on this count as I believe messages in books do have an impact at this age.

Ok, will stop before you start saying "Enough already!" in your head ;). Do share your insights on favourite authors, will be interesting for me to hear!

Enid Blyton's Universe?

Hmm.. just as I thought I was not going to find anything to write about, a visit to the library reminded me of this.. Phew!!

I might have mentioned earlier that my knowledge of young children's fiction pretty much stops at Enid Blyton, as I have read those by the dozen. Which means most of the newer stuff was unknown to me until many of you kindly gave me some ideas in a recent blog post :). But we recently came across this series:

Wondering why the EB fans among you haven't heard of this book? When I(or D) picked up the first book of this series, I didn't even notice the author's name. It was only when I flipped a few pages myself (yes I can't resist EB even at this age!) that I noticed the different style of writing. Well I am apparently an EB purist/puritan/whatever the word is, and really couldn't relate to these as much as the usual EB books. D on the other hand LOVES it, and regales me with tales of Bizzy, Melody and who-ever-else is in it. The author has created a lot of new characters, and also has some passing references to Saucepan and Moon-face and I really wonder how the concept of using EB's universe and writing her own books came out, but to me somehow it feels like a very sneaky way of marketing them. Why not just have your own universe? And pardon me, I don't feel like googling it just now to figure it all out!

Survey - What to read next?

A recent discussion on Enid Blyton, and how many of us are big fans, reminded me of this one lying in my drafts :).

D is 7 going on 9 reading age ;).. She reads a lot of Enid Blyton, probably because I introduced her to it and she took to it. So now she's done with a lot of the Naughtiest Girl, Faraway Tree, O'clock tales level of books and also all the Secret Sevens and most of the Famous Fives. I've tried nearly every type available in the local library, and now I think we've nearly exhausted the EB options :(. Roald Dahl is the only other author whose children's books I am reasonably confident about and have tried.

Now comes my quandary, I have no idea what could be the other authors that I could pick up for her next! I tried Harry Potter a few months ago, but it was still a bit too much then. In any case if she reads them at her usual pace, she'll be on to the slightly PG level of the later books before she's actually prepared for it.

Now that I have quite a few moms reading the blog (captive audience? ;)), I thought this would be a good place to ask - please give me some ideas! The main thing to keep in mind is her reading level is a little bit higher than many kids her age, but similar to any other reading-crazy kid I guess :).