Kiddie Lit

[ER]

Mary Ann wrote -

>I recently reread one of the books (they live in my daughter's 
bookcase; yes, I kept them) and they are *so* awful!

So bad, they're good! A chuckle on every page.

>But chances are that, once my kids are old enough to read them, 
they'll love them, too. And they gave me hours of entertainment when 
I was young, and that's the important point, isn't it?

Well I think so too, but I suspect the Literary Police (step forward 
A.S. Byatt) would differ! Still, yah-boo-sucks to them. With knobs 
on :) I wonder what ASB makes of Edith Nesbit - I do remember reading 
somewhere that Nesbit was considered a *good* children's writer. Four 
Children and It and all that.


Kirstini wrote -

>Me (Kirstini): The Famous Five books were all rewritten after a 
while (I'd imagine it would be sometime in the late70s-80s).

Waaaaaaaaaah! Bowdlerising Blyton? Bang goes my childhood.

> Enid Blyton was abit of an illicit pleasure for me, as my mum 
refused to let me read them at first, only giving in when a school 
friend gave me some Secret Seven books for a birthday.

Oh, no, the Secret Seven, now you've done it, I'm regressing even 
further back :) I think they were for even younger readers than the 
Famous Five books, weren't they? All I can remember about them is an 
incompetent village policeman ...

>"George's face was so blackened with soot that she looked like a 
little nigger boy." I don't think I knew what this meant at the time, 
but I'd always wondered why my mum didn't approve of me reading 
them... 

I think there was, if not an actual ban, then at least a de facto ban 
in libraries and schools in the 70s and 80s. Presumably for just such 
things as this. And I think Noddy (another of EB's creations) had a 
friend called Golliwog. Whether EB was being racist or whether she 
was just oblivious, like me, I just don't know ...

>Mary Ann, again:>>I'm glad I kept these books because none of my 
contemporaries in England have heard of Blume.
>You're joking! Judy Blume and Paula Danziger (the two sort of go 
together in my mind) were the favourite reads of my P6 and 7 (ten, 
eleven, twelve) classes. 

What sort of books were they? Girly? ;) I think I was onto John 
Buchan and Arthur Conan-Doyle by then ... and Ryder Haggard of 
course, ripping yarns and all that.


ER, wallowing now ...