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Monday, November 16, 2009

Why was Enid Blyton so controversial? | nourishing obscurity

Head of the BBC schools department Jean Sutcliffe said in an internal memo dated 1938: “My impression of her stories is that they might do for Children’s Hour but certainly not for Schools Dept, they haven’t much literary value.

“There is rather a lot of the Pinky-winky-Doodle-doodle Dum-dumm type of name – and lots of pixies – in the original tales.” She added that they were “competently written”.

For me, I don't remember the Golliwogs very well, but the Famous Five were pretty cool.

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2 comments:

River said...

I loved Enid (Gnid-haha) Blyton's stories when I was little and I think it's a shame that so many of the older stories have been altered in the name of political correctness.

YTSL said...

I remember "The Three Golliwogs" -- believe it or not, (a) it was one of my favorite Enid Blyton books as a kid (there's a story in there about a birthday that I thought was ultimately very sweet) and (b) I didn't realise -- until I was told -- that golliwogs were caricatures of black people!!! Rather, I just thought they were a category of toys like, you know, toy soldiers and teddy bears!