Enid Blyton: The Bestselling Author Since 1930

As an adult it’s sometimes embarrassing to admit my love for author Enid Blyton. The truth however is that she was the only author I read for a major chunk of my middle school days. She introduced me to the world of fantasy and as a child, her storybooks have pretty much designed my creativity and imagination. Her 118^th birthday was on 11^th August last week and I decided to dedicate my blog post to her.

After reading any random book of The Five Find-outer and Dog series, I felt desperate to live in the British countryside and be friends with native children. I wanted to form my own little team of detectives who would go around solving major crimes. I longed to have a secret meeting place where the door would be opened only after giving the correct password and once inside I would be greeted by the crackling fire, the warm smiles and an assortment of delicious snacks. I’m sure, any girl who has ever read the St. Claire Series or the Naughtiest Girl series, have at some point wanted to live in a boarding school! Yes, Blyton has that effect on children; she made the dull school life away from home look like picnics peppered with birthday celebrations, midnight detours and hanging out in the common rooms. I always wanted to own the “wishing chair” which would take me to faraway places like the Land of Goodies or the Land of Dreams. Personally I wanted to find the Wishing Chair more eagerly than the Faraway Tree in the Enchanted Forest because climbing a tree seemed like a lot of hard work!

Enid Blyton used to write with the pen name Mary Pollock. She was a versatile author who apart from the above mentioned themes wrote about education, natural history and biblical narratives! Her works have been translated into ninety different languages. Children in Britain voted for her making her the most popular children’s author of all time! Sadly though, critics, educationalists and even parents have widely criticized her works deeming them unfit to be read by children. Her books have been banned at quite a few schools and libraries owing to their supposed elitist, sexist, racist and xenophobic nature. She never researched for any of her stories and thus inevitably plagiarized the stories that she read, sometimes her own works too! She claimed that planning the course of action for her books had never worked out for her. She let the stories unfold themselves before her eyes, in their own time and pace. She herself didn’t know what direction her plot will take at any point of time.

In spite of all the charges made against her, Enid Blyton continues to be the most celebrated Children’s author. Reading her works has had a positive impact on our moral compass from a very tender age. She has made us realize that even as children we can work wonders if we are kind and focused on our work. She made us realize that nothing can hold us back from achieving greatness if we put our minds to it and for all these wonderful lessons I salute her.