I read A LOT of Enid Blyton when I was a kid, and I definitely meant to capitalise A LOT. Enid Blyton was the reason I:

1. Wanted to go to boarding school
2. Wanted to live on an island/lie on heather (this stopped when I realised I only like nature from a distance)
3. Wanted to eat scones (tbf, these are delicious and I love baking them)

And probably a few more things but I’ve already forgotten them. 

The Real Enid Blyton is a biography of this writer and it was an eye-opener. I always knew that I liked her stories, but I didn’t realise how complicated her life was. It’s pretty clear that having her dearly loved father walk out on her and her family stunted Blyton emotionally, and even though she wrote prolifically and was devoted to her fans (apparently she was very insistent on answering fan mail by hand), she was also very emotionally distant to her daughters and couldn’t sustain more than one emotionally intimate relationship at a time. 

Another thing the biography also made clear was how contradictory Blyton was. She always talked about the importance of the traditional nuclear family, but she didn’t even act like the mothers she wrote about to her own kids! She was definitely a very business-minded woman and she embodied a lot of the thinking of her times – which is why there is a lot to criticise in her writing as well. 

Regarding her books, can someone remind me to read The Rockingdown Mystery because it’s apparently “one of Enid’s most sophisticated series of books”. I also read that The Family at Red Roofs (which I’ve talked about a little here) is Blyton’s second attempt at fiction with social commentary – her first was The Six Bad Boys and apparently it was better received by adults than children. It’s interesting to see how she tried to branch out in her writing.

The last part of the book covers the backlash against Blyton and how she is now semi-rehabilitated. I actually don’t know if she’s still selling well/being read by children, but as someone who grew up reading Blyton, I can see why her name sells. I am, for example, interested in reading the Famous Five parody series! 

The only negative thing I have to say about this book is that it moves along at a very fast pace (by chapter 6, Enid is 34 and the whole book is over by chapter 18). The narration also feels fairly distant and we are definitely being told what is going on rather than being immersed in her life, but this wasn’t a huge problem for me.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book! I never really think about authors, especially authors of childhood favourites, so it was interesting learning about Blyton and seeing what a complex, contradictory person she was. I think the next time I reread something from her, I’ll be seeing things through a new lens.