'I don't need it any more but it would be very useful if someone else is ill'' And the only reason Rick is there in book 2 and Connie in book 3 is because their mothers are really ill and unable to look after them. Here's a quote from book 2: ''We'll put the rest of the bottle of magic medicine away,' she said. but then again they didn't even bother to cure Rick's sick mother with it in the book where they got it. It's a bit curious that the magic medicine used to cure the children's mother in book 2 isn't mentioned given that Connie's mother is sick for months. There's a return to the land of Dame Slap/Snap too. In the 'grand battle' at the end the girls are all sent up the tree with Silky to wait while the boy, Moonface and male small-folk sort the trolls out.Ī variety of magic lands are visited, some of them (the lands of secrets and of knowalls) specifically to show the undesirable nature of nosiness (or curiosity). The book is over 70 years old though and even in the 'sanitized' versions some evidence of its age will show through. Another element does appear to the the now-anachronistic view that curiosity, particularly in girls, is an undesirable trait. Though I suppose if that was the extent of it Blyton could have brought in Nosy Nelly. Part of it is the use of the word 'curious' in place of nosy. This time the new child to be introduced to the tree and improved by the experience is Connie, daughter of a friend of the mother.Ĭonnie's fault is being curious. The third book is, like the second, simply a collection of tree-related episodes, each fairly self-contained. Clare's.Īccording to the Index Translationum, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare.Ĭelyn and I have completed our marathon re-read of the Faraway trilogy. Notable series include: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, The Five Find-Outers, Noddy, The Wishing Chair, Mallory Towers, and St. Her stories were often either children's adventure and mystery stories, or fantasies involving magic.

She died in 1968, one year after her second husband.īlyton was a prolific author of children's books, who penned an estimated 800 books over about 40 years. This marriage ended in divorce, and Blyton remarried in 1943, to surgeon Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters. She taught for five years before her 1924 marriage to editor Hugh Pollock, with whom she had two daughters. Christopher's School, Beckenham, and - having decided not to pursue her music - at Ipswich High School, where she trained as a kindergarten teacher. Enid Mary Blyton (1897 - 1968) was an English author of children's books.īorn in South London, Blyton was the eldest of three children, and showed an early interest in music and reading.

The folk of the faraway tree 1972