Blyton's stories still captivating the kids

Hera Diani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Giant picnics of ham, rolls, egg sandwiches, chocolate eclairs, plus those endless bottles of ginger beer and lemonade.

It is one of my favorite things from Enid Blyton's books, whose details still vividly linger in my mind, although 15 years have passed since I last read her stories in Indonesian translation.

I used to get all mouth-watery as Blyton described the meals either brought by the Famous Five on picnics, or served as midnight feasts in the boarding schools for girls series.

Aside from the tempting food, Blyton offered excitement and a sense of escapism by illustrating a world of freedom, excitement and adventure, be it in small towns, the circus or even at school.

Despite similar themes, each book has its own unique stories.

I actually got carried away by her tales, gathering four friends and dragging my dog to find mysteries in the front yard. I even browsed boarding schools that fit the descriptions -- with dormitories in old towers and a swimming pool by the sea, for instance.

But the ones that existed were Islamic boarding schools with poor facilities, as well as strict teachers instead of comical French tutors.

In hindsight, I think Blyton did more than just deliver entertaining stories of fun and games. She constantly provided strong female characters that pubescent girls can relate to or look up to. Many women who read the Famous Five have called tomboy Georgina, or George, their first feminist role model.

Mine, however, is Darrel Rivers of the Mallory Towers series, who is a bit short tempered, but good hearted, smart and has strong leadership. She is also an aspiring writer who manages to write an excellent school play.

Blyton teaches values of friendship and family, and morals like integrity, trust and loyalty.

It is ironic, however, that back in the 1960s, Blyton's books were accused of offering demeaning racial stereotypes, snobbishness, being sexist or even containing homoerotic scenes (Noddy in Toyland books).

Blyton's defenders said that she was more a product of her times than racist and sexist. The typical girl stereotype is needed in her books, and always countered by the strong female roles. The homoerotic accusation is ridiculous (as absurdly comical as the "gay" charge made against Tinky Winky of the Teletubbies.

Born in London on Aug. 11, 1897, little Enid Mary Blyton kept her nose in a book all the time. She lived with her mother and two siblings after her father Thomas, a successful wholesale clothing businessman, had an affair with another woman and her parents' marriage broke up.

Blyton had been sent to school for her musical talent, but then she started to write, something that her family thought a waste of time.

Her first published poem, Have You-? appeared in Nash's Magazine in 1917, followed by her first book, Child Whispers five years later.

Blyton was trained as a kindergarten teacher and opened her own elementary school before entirely devoting herself to writing.

Arguably, she is the most prolific children's writer of the last century, with a staggering 4,000 stories and some 700 books to her credit.

She could write up to 10,000 words a day, and for at least a year in the 1950s, she produced an average of a book every five days.

Toward the end of the 1960s, librarians imposed sanctions on her writings, saying that it had limited vocabulary, and that children should be given more of a chance to discover other writers.

The main target was Noddy, "the most egocentric, joyless, sniveling and pious antihero in the history of British fiction" (not to mention Noddy's supposedly effeminate behavior and "close" relationship with gnome Big Ears).

Rumors also spread that she did not write all her stories. Thankfully, the trumped-up accusations and ban did not last long.

Blyton died in her sleep on Nov. 28, 1968, in a nursing home, but her legacy lives on.

At the end of the 1990s, over 300 titles were still in print, with Famous Five stories made into several TV series, as well as modern adventure games.

Even today, Blyton's ability to encourage children to read has been recognized generally and she always found readers from new generations.

"She was a child, she thought as a child and she wrote as a child," the psychologist Michael Woods stated about the secret of her books.