Comments on: From George to Jyoti: The Famous Five Get a Disneyfied Makeover

By: delorise may

delorise may — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:36:59 +0000

In this you only mentioned about four of the characters including the dog(timmy) but really there are five characters not including the dog(timmy) there are Jo, Max, Allie, Dylan, and Timmy the dog but you didn’t mention jo was a character you said that she was a owner of some of the books……..

By: arshia

arshia — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 16:21:43 +0000

It’s really awfull that these book in some sense have been recycled. i am damn sure enid blyton wouldn’t have felt nice because so many people who read her books are also feeling bad. I am her great fan. Though these new series are a lot of fun but still it’s not good to remake famous five. I had even myself started to write a new seies of famous five(of course in the old way). Enid blyton is the best author i have ever known and no new book can be better than hers.

By: Stephen isabirye

Stephen isabirye — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:09:44 +0000

May I take this opportunity to inform you that I have just published a book on Enid Blyton titled, The Famous Five:A Personal Anecdotage (www.bbotw.com).

Stephen Isabirye

By: Sophia

Sophia — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:48:28 +0000

Ashleigh, I couldn’t agree more. I grew up in Holland, and this mid-night party type of ginger beer drinking story writing (I had NO IDEA what ginger beer was) really spoke to my imagination. Yes, the rogues always spoke some undefined “foreign language”, the gypsies in the stories were filthy, and the “good” ones were only good if they changed to the English way of living – or at least tried to. The boys made all the decisions and had the dangerous adventures, and the girls enjoyed doing all the housework (except George, who was my hero and role model) Yet, all that never made a racist of, or a lesbian, it went way above my head. I just accepted all that in the context of the story, and then accepted that when I finished the exciting book I’d come back within our (drab) reality where things were different, and where I could not spend a week on a deserted island with a bunch of foreign, filthy criminals to lock me up in a dungeon and threatened to shoot my dog (my favorite wish for many years, and it never happened even once, I did not even get a dog)

I think in our aim for political correctness, we tend to lose that children should be children, and don’t really think all that deep… let them enjoy the stories for what they are – or were.

By: Ashleigh

Ashleigh — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:56:57 +0000

I'm Australian and grew up reading Enid - I had several books, in most cases not all her series, and only recently read 2-10 of the Famous Five [originals] and am waiting to get the rest in a boxset, as I am using it in a thesis on gender in Enid Blyton and have to look for it all.

However, as a child reading what I had, I never saw racism or sexism. It went over my head. I never saw Fanny and Dick as rude names, nor Bessie as a "black": name [it's just a nickname for Elizabeth].

So all this political correctness coming out now is upsetting me. The reason? Books are written for their time. If we edit Blyton to accomodate our times, and make the boys do housework too, change names and words and settings, you may as well rewrite them and put someone else's name on, and what is next? Oliver Twist being taken care of, going to school and not being a robber? I always say this on the subject of censorship: if it offends you, you don't like it or whatever, do not read/watch/listen to it, and DON'T ruin it for the other people who like it and don't just because you think no-one should read it, deprive others of wanting to.

And don't change classics like this. As a children's literature researcher, I am always checking out new kids books and some that come out now are almost...too simplistic for the age group they target. but back to Blyton. I don't like what Disney are doing, I think its wrong and they should leave well enough alone.

I hope that makes sense.

By: Lalitha

Lalitha — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:57:48 +0000

Personally, I’m very happy about the change – so far. It all depends on how the character develops (that being said, it is one of my big issues with Blyton as a whole, that her characters are never more than types). I grew up in Europe and pretty much none of the books I read (apart from the occasionaly Amar Chitra Katha, Twinkle or Chandamama carefully wrapped and posted by my grandparents) ever featured “people who look like me”. I didn’t think much of it then, but it was a great shock when, years later, I went to the UK and saw an “Asian” family on Eastenders. It was thrilling, it was great; it put me ‘on the map’ so to speak. Now unfortunately that family was a bust (the producers didn’t seem to realise that just getting a bunch of actors in various shades of brown does not a realistic tv-family make), and were given ridiculous story-lines and ultimately axed. I only hope the same fate doesn’t await little Jyoti; I hope they characterise her realistically and sensitively. I know a lot of kids – British Asians especially – will be rooting for her. Additionally, I hope that because she is George’s daughter (all talk of determinism aside) she’ll be an adventurous and independent girl, which would be a nice change from all the submissive Indian ‘victim’ women we usually see on tv here.

By: amreekan

amreekan — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:16:35 +0000

“(wherein strapping Brit adventurer ventures out to ‘discover’ the Arabian Empty Quarter with cohort of brave, loyal and rather handsome Arabs).” yes, and a common traits of Thesiger, T.E. Lawrence, and probably some others of less fame, was an attraction to the men and boyds of the tribes only. Neither of these two (I think Thesiger, very old, is still alive) ever married.

By: Somewhere East

Somewhere East — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:12:59 +0000

Thanks for drawing attention to this rather drab take on a cherished bit of ‘our’ heritage. I guess, as some have said, India is changing, but for me Enid Blyton (original), Archie comics, Beano comics, Agatha Christie, etc, are quintessentially ‘thirdie’, or at least ex-British colony. You grow up with the classics, and you entertain yourselves with the books on the shelves that once diverted your parents. These books are probably more fun for thirdies anyway — to us, they are fantasies on par with Arabian nights and the like. What about the Brits, did they ever read them? I know lots of Indians, Africans who gush about the stuff, but never really heard the same from a Brit.

As for the racism, you don’t combat this by pretending it doesn’t exist, or substituting poor quality multi-cult stuff. I read the EB stuff about gypsies (not sure if I knew that Tinkers were gypsies), but I also had a gorgeous book called Gypsy Folk Tales, with lots of brown-skinned folk with names like Kalo Dant (black tooth). Ultimately, the notion of these Indianish peoplewandering the world and speaking a somewhat recognizable language intrigued me so much that I read more about them as I got older, visited some in the Balkans and was fascinated to learn of their own profound and caste-derived disdain for the hygiene and mores of non-gypsies. But EB and ilk obviously also stuck with me, and indirectly propelled me to read, and adore, Thesiger’s decidedly orientalist, boy’s own but also admirable take on the bedouin in Arabian Sands (wherein strapping Brit adventurer ventures out to ‘discover’ the Arabian Empty Quarter with cohort of brave, loyal and rather handsome Arabs).

By: amreekan

amreekan — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:27:35 +0000

Maybe reading stories with sharply different moraes than what we’re used to nowadays, yet with characters we can identify with, is more interesting than most of what’s out nowadays, just by virtue of forcing us to interact with the story so to speak. We can gaily, or mildly cheerfully, accept what we want, spit out what we don’t. Have spirited arguments with author’s ghost. It’s good for what muscles we use while reading.

By: SP

SP — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:55:14 +0000

Sandhya, if you ever find the Blyton in Bombay radio documentary PLEASE PLEASE post a link here! Would love to listen to it (having grown up both on Enid Blyton and in Bombay).