(no subject)

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Firstly I've got to say how much I'm enjoying Biskybat's fanfic. Enid Blyton is undergoing such a revival at the moment:in the library with my daughter this afternoon she chose a Malory Towers book. I was a bit doubtful as I never liked Enid Blyton, but she wanted it because her friends are all reading them. The shelves were groaning with reissued Blytons with revamped covers. This brings me onto my point - would Antonia Forest be more widely read and in print today, if she had kept her stories in the same time period throughout? (I mean the post-war 40s) Would modern teachers/librarians/children cope with the aspects of Marlow world that they dislike if those aspects could be accepted as part of the period? Plenty of children's classics survive featuring privileged middle class kids with nannys and cooks etc. and the survival of Malory Towers etc. shows that boarding school stories are not a problem. But is the Marlowverse just too much of a problem transposed into the seventies?

Comments

[charverz.livejournal.com]

Not so long ago when my boys regularly entered "Battle of the Books", my wife (an English teacher) and I were appaalled at the absolute bilge that was on the list. Quite apart from the fact that there were few books aimed at boys, the common theme seemed to be that the heroine/hero had to a) lose a parent OR b) suffer a severe illness/handicap.

Give me AF any day.

The school stories are not so entrenched in the boarding school that day hops wouldn't be able to relate. At heart these are stories about relationships - between siblings, between friends, between enemies. If you can get past superficial differences (English v. North American speech patterns - dare I say use of good English?; netball and cricket instead of basketball, etc. I don't see why modern children could not relate to them. (Apart from the fact that due to excessive electronic entertainment most have very short attention spans.)

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Modern children are all North American? Who knew? ;)

[lizarfau.livejournal.com]

lol, yes. I must have been imagining my son playing cricket this summer.