The Barney Mysteries

 

It's a warm post ban holiday day here as I type this weeks blogs so having been at EBS he old adage "You can't but a good book down would seem to apply around these parts of late  as some more new to me books by Enid Blyton arrived recently that cannot be bought now.

These copies are actually editions from the very early nineteen-seventies where while still in hardback form they have been cheapened by printing the frontspiece and spine direct to the jacket and missing off the rear of what would of been the back of the paper dust jacket the original hardbacks had.

 There are six novels in this series of mystery adventures that feature Rodger and Diana Lynton and their cousin Peter, ophaned, who goes under the name "Subby" in the series and his dog Laddie who are also joined by Barney an motherless circus boy who has been on a quest to find his absent father and who has a money called Miranda.

The "Barney Mysteries" is the title these usually are grouped under although some use "R Mysteries" with the "R" coming from the R in the names of all the titles.

The children visit sleepy villages and seaside towns that it transpires are riddled with intregue and it's that they look into.

One of the strengths of this series is the stories are full of atmosphere and good humour, the strong characterization making for much more depth  than most of her work and more sophisticated language that made it the only series Enid herself recommended just for those of eleven years and upward while still staying within child friendly themes.

That Boarding School Girl

After last weeks post which was really pretty rapidly assembled after I realized that with a few problems across the weekend I had not got around to  it I think this week we may get deeper and some indication of which is for the first time in ages I am using a Windows based machine.

One site I have used for donkey's years is closing at the end of the month, a matter of the increased liabilities anyone running a site they themselves own do face and in part the slow dwindling of traditional forums as much as I regret that as simply, a well designed forum is much easier to find your way around than the likes of X or Instagram even though the cool kids just stay in that "walled garden"

That place played a part in the establishment of my original blog being the direct inspiration for taking topics, be they around Trans Life, Music, Reading, the nature of Gender and Sexual identity and expanding owns own thoughts to many there that followed it.

Reading through some of the old messages still preserved reminded me very much of just how front and central that site was and why to this day the blog still has quite a high coverage given I don't push it really hard.

It was really the place where after some negative encounters online and a struggle balancing the more serious grown up side and what simply would never go away, the more little, child-like I just broke down and came out LG.

And they just accepted that.

My choice of avatar their reflected that, a girl on a swing with the forum signature line "I'll go on my swing if I want to" summed it up.: While prepared to engage with adult topics, I was to be open about my Little Sides needs. I created a spot for them there too.

That write large went into the more grown up That Boarding School Girl blog as an expanded entry.
 

kk

Revisiting an old book

There are things you may have and do feel like revisiting such as books you had for an awful long time and today I'm writing about one.

A good many years back was the internet was becoming more a thing and I first got online I learned from sites I visited not just a bit more about upcoming releases and some variants of Beatles albums but also of books that went more into the history the Band and their Singles and Albums together with marketing.

One name I learned about was the American Bruce Spizer who did write and I eventually got his more useful supplement to 2004's Capitol Albums Volume One box set which had more of the facts, figures and story of these albums than the official enclosed booklet.

Some years ago I bought a few in a kind of paper back form the first editions of a new series of books he wrote around specific albums and one I recently re-read was The Beatles Finally Let It Be, the title being a pun based upon just how long and how many attempts that sessions that ended up as the Let It Be album and its accompanying movie it book until they were "let be" and released.

In it for example you learn of Magic Alex who saw himself as an electronics wizard inventor who appeared to the ear of John Lennon and his plan to build for them the bestest recording studio around with 72 tracks in a world where most had only 8.

That plan effected the recording of this album they only found a 8 track system riddled with so much hum and noise it was simply not fit for purpose, a building where there was no provision for cabling from studio to control room to recording consoles and where the was so little screening of noises such as that from the boiler, it had to be turned off whenever they were recording.

He also inexplicably had eight speakers, one per track where you only needed two for stereo mixing.

Magic Alex was really way out of his depth lacking real knowledge but John believed him even though he was close enough to people who worked and even owned, as George Martin their producer did, studios and knew just what was really needed and possible.

That fascinating little story one of several showed just how gullible the four beatles, not least John were back then handing over vast sums of money to people who knew little but how to gain their money.

It was fun re-reading this volume.

Opal Plumstead revisited

This week I am revisiting a book that appealed to me a few years ago not least as with current events it has been taking me out of where I need to be, that boarding school girl and just be surrounded by groan up stuff that doesn't do me much good

This book was published in the autumn of 2014 and concerns the life of one Opal Plumstead aged 14 who got a scholarship to attend school planning to go on to university when she was older.

Alas her plans are shattered upon her father being sent to prison and so unable to take up the scholarship and having to get a a job at the Fairy Glen sweet factory to keep her family as was often the case in 1913. 

To start with she struggles with getting on the staff who think she's "stuck up" and snobby unlike them but she takes a shine to Mrs Roberts, the business owner introducing her to the Suffragette movement.

She also meets Morgan, the son and heir to the business who she feels she finally has a soul mate in but with war on the horizon bringing many forced changes it can only change Opal's life forever.

As a piece of historical fiction it helps to bring to life the lives and events of that whole era that lead to WW1 and in  its aftermath the widespread social  changes of Great Britain that I enjoyed learning about when I was younger.

To me setting things in their everyday context makes it easier to comprehend just how peoples could change so suddenly in an era without social insurance and where to see the doctor cost money.

Wonderland

Sunny start to the day here watching next doors cat sunbathing on OUR garden like his isn't good enough while I'm getting on with putting a few things in a bag to go out for part of the day, enjoying the weather.

For all of the fans of this

 

And that's an awful lot of us,eh, Alice, one place I like to visit in more normal times.

You can follow the Alice trail across Llandudno which is an awful lot of fun as is the dress.

The world is rather absurd at times.

Rent a Bridesmaid

Recently I picked up a copy of book I'd thought about getting late last year but as things are want to do with me at times I'd forgotten all about it, bought a copy  and sat across a few days reading it.

The story is about a nine year old girl, Tilly who can scarcely believe it when her best friend and class mate, Matty, is offered the role of being a bridesmaid for she is as much a tomboy as Tilly is more girly girl and really wasn't looking forward to it.
Tilly's parents had split up and the dress is very much the focus of Tilly's longing for her parents to be reunited as she missed no longer living with Mom.
After her friend had worn it and it had been cleaned, Matty offers her the dress as she could never see herself ever wearing it again and this leads into Tilly's favourite daydream of being a bridesmaid in the must beautiful dress, walking behind the bride and after talking it through with her best friend resolves to sort this by advertising herself as a Bridesmaid for rent at the local store.

This is the dress and most beautiful it is too.
The dress leads to her meeting different people such as an older couple, a same sex couple of professional people and a family who had planned a large church wedding with five other bridesmaids, all of which enrich her life.
The one thing sadly all of this cannot do is the very thing she longs for the most -to reunite her family- so when her Mom who it transpires later on hadn't been well mentally does come to see her after Tilly appears on a tv program about weddings, her hopes are dashed .
This said there does seem to be a relationship blossoming between Miss Hope her teacher and her dad and maybe if there's to be a sequel Tilly will be the bridesmaid at that wedding!
One of things I liked about it was the exploration  of the friendship between Matty and Tilly, that although being in so many ways polar opposites not just their personalities but lifestyles and that despite this they really do gel, becoming best friends. That comes over so well in how it is written showing how disagreements that for those of who remember just high emotional we were around their ages soon get minded with some tlc.
To conclude although on the face of it it's a relatively uncomplicated story about a girl and her dress it has more depth exploring the nature of friendship you can see at a more grown up level very intensely heartfelt and emotional coming over through intelligent use of subtle nuances of mood and character. It is a great joy to read.

Riding Freedom

Seeing we've just started into the new month, I thought I'd kick off the first entry of March with something that goes back a few years where two friends and I read a book together, sharing our thoughts on it.

 Written in 1998 by Pam Munoz Ryan, Riding Freedom is a fictionalized story about a mid 1800's pioneering woman, Charlotte Parkhurst who was raised in a orphanage for boys  that tells the tale of her life from escaping the orphanage, becoming a legendary stagecoach driver as "Charley", getting a ranch of her own in California and being the first American woman to vote.
While the book has received a number of positive reviews from people such as the School Library Journal and I loved the gritty female emancipation theme it contains, I wasn't to taken with the way it was written.
To me it feels more a straight on fictionalized retelling of a life being more an account of  "Charley's" life from the orphanage , escaping life limited to domestic  chores  to owning a smallholding than a actual story, fascinating for the historical detail but lacking in character development in areas like examining in detail how she felt and how whole incidents really played out.
This was especially noticeable in the secondary characters such as Ebeneezer as we seldom really got to know them, having more a cursory description  that lift them more into your minds eye although there was so much that could of been made of it.
A disappointment.

Wave Me Goodbye

It was just about three months ago that I was given by a kind relation who enjoys reading, a gift voucher for a well known book and stationery store and in early June, a new book by a favourite author of mine came out so I called in and used it to buy this book.

Entitled Wave My Goodbye, it is about the world of one Shirley L. Smith who lives with her Mom who works in an office and Dad who has joined the Army in the centre of London in Nineteen Thirty-nine.
It has been decided all the children need to be evacuated as the threat of war with Nazi Germany for their own well-being from bombing and it is being done on a school by school basis.
The whole of Paradise Road Junior School is called up, so Shirley has to have a suitcase packed with a change of clothes including night wear plus her favourite dolls and  books before her mommy sees her off at London Victoria railway station which after some fuss she is allowed to sit with the girls of the St Agatha's Convent School of whom it transpires seem to get the best of everything, enroute to Meadow Ridge way out in the countryside.
Arrangements for billeting the children and staff seem very rushed as nothing had been prearranged between the W.V.S. and W.I.and the children are taken around the village until someone claims  them. Unfortunately Shirley plus two east end boys, Kevin and Archie appear to stuck with nowhere to go until with some reluctance Mrs Waverley and Chubby who is her assistant at the Red House, decides to take them in although it appears they hadn't enough food in for them straightaway nor beds .
The children are bought new clothes which for Shirley includes a School Tunic and tie as she only had a pleated skirt with attached bodice and a party frock to change into plus Mrs Waverley also loves reading so they have something in common.
The story sees them attending school in extra classes of the villages local school with lessons by  who is brisk, kind in some ways but not opposed to strapping misbehaving children.
They appear to get on although life has it's ups and downs not least with one of the boys having a problem with bed wetting that creates a lot of work but following an accident  when Kevin follows Shirley who can look at Mrs Waverley's dolls house from the end of the war and to which is a kind of model of the life who had hope to have until her husband was killed in the Great War (W.W.1) and in the course of playing with it breaks the arm of the dolly of him, she gets upset and Kevin and Shirley run off back to London where she is met by her dad for a few days.
He returns them and smooths over the misunderstandings with Chubby and Mrs Waverley so they feel at home and so stay there until the war is over.

The story is one that is undeniable moving, based on what happened across much of Great Britain during the build up and shortly after World War Two, when our major city areas were deemed to unsafe for children and they travelled often more in hope that everything would work out being without their parents.
It is also true that some didn't want 'city children'  and their ways around and others only wanted them for much more for what they could bring them on say farms for labour rather than providing a safe place to live and yet for others it did bring changes for the better in their lives having access to fresh air and countryside.
As a book I found it highly enjoyable although a bit sad in places, telling an important story about the social history of being a child caught up in the storms of war having to adjust to vastly different realities.

Snowed in Friday musings

Wasn't planning on writing something actually but actually thought I'd type a few words although I may not make quite as many twice weekly editions as I did last year even though I think it'll be a few weeks until I have a 'proper' cycle mapped out.

 There are a few things I am going to be talking about, one is how comments and entries not just on my blog, although as ever so long as they're fit to be printed I'm always happy for people comment on it.
I think there's a difference between talking about something, it might be drawing , an article or a story and what you feel about it and where it is about some technical aspect of it such as missing a small matching bit off a picture or perhaps not the ideal shade of a colour  in picture or a spelling or punctuation mistake in a written piece.
I think we're familiar enough  being set a task at school or college, handing it in  and being graded on it perhaps to the point of a written comment being made the sorts of things I can think of would be "Needs new paragraph", "Should be in red" or even as I had in school "See me" when I didn't really feel like putting much effort into things and things came out of draws *cough*.
Anyway that's fine and dandy for formal learning and yes even I increasing recognize the value of that and being expected to put more thought into things so we go improve in what we're doing but when we do things just for ourselves as shared "For fun" thing is that the right way to go about it?
Rather than leaving a string of comments about technical errors we can easily correct forever marring it, shouldn't we message or email any  points or suggestions that that person can put aright so while they do learn as we need to from our mistakes, our masterpiece isn't left  cluttered up by them?
Second thing is eventually I did get the second Valerie Hastings piece of classic G.O (Girls Only)  fiction in a 1968 hard back edition

 You know all about me and G.O fiction, the stuff I read at school, especially boarding school so I was super pleased about that.
It's really about the strange goings on at Hazelmere, Jill's boarding school where it transpires an arts competition is being used to smuggle out two stolen works of art from a local art collector and the perils for Penny Maxwell of having her Mom on the school's governing body interfering  in the Fourth Forms lessons like the music lessons topics and the Horse Riding plus wanting to fix things for Penny where this will only undermine the sense of fairness seen by the remainder of the form.
I don't think I mentioned for a good while I do have a number of Angela Brazil's masterpieces of the genre in Armada paperbacks, the copies I had living as a child (well we can't truthfully say growing up!)

 I wrote about this several years back , a gripping tale of intrigue, inheritance and the lives of schoolgirls and recently re-read it.
F-f-finally as it's rather cold and snowy up here in the North-west Midlands of England, I am toying with making some slightly older avatars to test out as I do feel I'm maturing just a little more than I did a few years back which is ironic given so  much of it comes from this regressed little/middles life.

Christmas Edition 2016

There is a bit of annual tradition on this blog from its very start of doing a Christmas edition rather like as if we'd been around of each others houses and said "How  was Christmas with you?"
For me I was a bit late getting up as I had a migraine on Christmas Eve that was reluctant to  shift so I got dressed and came down for a light breakfast before messaging my Caregiver, BFF and opening my presents.

That's some of them stacked up so I wonder just what might possibly be inside of them?

The Beano was a staple comic of mine growing up even if today it's only available on download and we always had the Christmas Annual so getting that as a hardback with the stories of Gnasher, Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx and co really is a ritual I love.

 The Dandy suffered a bigger fate as it was discontinued outright but they do one off editions and a annual so I like to read new adventures of Korky the Kat and Desperate Dan of Cow Pie fame.

I love reading although with my learning disabilities I can't manage anything other than junior fiction and even then anything getting more above a reading age of 12 is hard going so Mommy bought me this First edition of the new Jacqueline  Wilson novel set in Victorian England.

She also bought me the last Historical novel she wrote in a series looking very much at life in  Great Britain from a child in hospital in the early nineteen-fifties. I'll write a full review when I've read them .

I had this originally in Paperback but had been longing to find a copy with the original text in so my Brother gave me some money toward buying this used copy lacking its dust jacket as original hard backs are really quite rare and expensive.
I had some chocolate oranges, money and biscuits too from people that care about me.

Malory Towers revisited

After all the excitement of last week and writing up all the adventures on Monday I'm writing what in some ways is a continuation piece from a 2011 entry of mine that kind of gives you an idea of just how long I've been blogging.
When I wrote way back in more or less exactly five years ago about Malory Towers, the  six part series of novels by Enid Blyton, I remarked about a couple of things I had noticed since originally encountering them in childhood.
One was about the illustrations which I feel is relevant not least in the Country I presently reside in because for a school based series, you see, you may well have personally even worn, the uniforms many schools have so have a mental image of what a school boy or in this case a school girl generally looks like. The tendency for cartoonish illustrations in particular used on the  first decade of this centuries editions of this series  particularly made them look cheap and detached them from their era.
I'd never of bought them as a child cos I wanted something that looked presentable and clearly hooked me into the story.
I saw the paperbacks with those images and bought at the time a nicer looking set of softbacks from 2004 that served me well until something else came very much to light.
Like with a good number of her books, the text had been altered with no clear indication and so I did pick up a 1987 omnibus edition of the first four novels published by W H Smith but printed by Methuen Children's books under license.

I didn't actually realize Dean's who were an imprint of Methuen's  did a complete  set in the form of two hard back books until very recently and given these were from the early 1990's was a bit concerned about those troublesome alterations and updates.
The first volume not so imaginatively titled Malory Towers came out in 1991, a year later than the separate six volumes issued in their Rewards series with more modernish but generally tasteful front covers.
I did check the text over as in the first novel, First Term at Malory Towers, there are clear references both to Darrel's behaviour that are toned down in modern editions and the threat to spank with a hairbrush common enough when first published but removed completely in newer editions. That was big shock I found moving to the 2004 set to that incomplete omnibus late 80's edition because it does alter the feel of those schoolgirls in a boarding school, like I was, and makes the adults responses more understandable.
This 1991 set surprisingly uses the same text as if they had used the same typesetting as that and had carried it over to the 1990 Rewards too and keeps a good number of the original black and white illustrated plates by Jenny Chapple.

While the cover looks slightly too contemporary to my eyes, the advantage of having the second volume over the 1987 is in part less weight for having just three novel per volume compared to four and again it uses a less modern so-called politically correct text.
My suspicion are that actually these three in one omnibus editions and the 1990 separate ones are just repackaged editions of the versions Methuen  had out during the 1980's with newer covers for sale by certain book sellers who specialized in discounted hardback books aimed at adults buying for children.

 Now that is the original hardback dust jacket from Third Year at Malory Towers which I feel sums up the feel of playing sports together at an all girls school wearing era specific uniform.
While to be honest I'd sooner they had used front covers more in that style for these two three in one omnibus editions, they do make for a good way to get relatively recent pre-political correct text versions often been found for just a few pounds each in good condition.
They do match my St Clares and The Naughtiest Girl Dean's omnibus editions being from the same era with their vanilla coloured spines.
I was very glad to spot these just before I went away.
Original entry: Malory Towers

The Secret Seven and the missing words

Seeing my Caregiver is away but otherwise contactable this week  I really better be good  and get on with things here.
One of things I have made a bit of a start on is getting replacement hard back copies of my Secret Seven books that I originally wrote a bit about on here a few years ago with the bulk of them being modern edition but with good original illustrations and the other five being 1970's paperback ones.

 This series is for me a link of that nine through thirteen period where  having moved from the first 'proper' reading books I had from around  six with Mr Twiddle, I was looking for something a bit more 'grown up', a bit challenging both by the style of writing and also use of a wider vocabulary and that of older children.
It's an adventure series of a group of children who meet up having adventures while trying to solve mysteries and in it we see their personalities such as a somewhat bossy Peter, club leader.
In many ways it touches on that sense of longing to be long to a group, a circle which as a child of that age  you sure felt and in the series we see Susie, one of more quick thinking children kept out, perhaps more that she might undermine Peter than anything else.
They have a scottie dog called Scamper who rather like George's dog Timmy in the Famous Five plays a big role, big enough to be counted as a member even!
Actually it is the similarities that invite comparison between both of Enid Blyton's adventure series usually to the the detriment of the Secret Seven in which two later stories do clearly reference Famous Five books almost as if she was saying "If you read this, please consider reading the Famous Five!" but that's negate the point which is this is a self contained series aimed at younger children or children with a lower reading age which was probably why I got them given my reading issues when I did.
The series was started in nineteen forty-nine  and concluded in nineteen sixty-three and like the Famous Five editions later copies were subject not just to things such as changes in currency but also in dress where the girls generally wear pinafores rather as I do now but these were again changed for jeans or shorts and the boys wore jeans unlike boys even in the early to mid nineteen-seventies in school who wore tailored hard wearing lined shorts.
The text also was altered in recent copies to 'reflect' modern social ideas so where in the second novel, Secret Seven Adventure, Peter says to Jack as he is being scolded for allowing his sister Suzie to have his  Secret Seven badge she should be smacked for it and a grown up says to the children  the girl at the circus should be spanked for her constant fibbing, that is removed. Given it was written in nineteen-fifty that would of happened and I can well recall when I did something like that in the nineteen seventies I and my peers sure  were smacked or spanked.
It's small details like that, the references to things in 'shillings' that set the backdrop of this adventure as are things like the circus acts a child of that era saw, regardless of our own views on that today and why apart from the feel of having the hard back I'm slowly building up a collection of them hopefully all with dust jackets, to read and enjoy as I did back then.

Original entry:
Original 2012 Secret Seven entry

The return of the original Famous Five

This edition, composed on the JoBook is part of a restoration theme I touched on on Friday being linked in part to getting back in touch with some people I was close to a few years who may have some different reasons for their interest than I but is a place where I can discuss that side of reading that for me is rooted as much part with my past and present child-like sense of being as much as a love of reading, my difficulties with reading aside.
Enid Blyton was as no doubt for many of us in the British Commonwealth the author we were introduced by schools and parents keen for us to reading something other than comics and preferable to the big threat of our era, the TV in the corner which was feared for turning us into passive unthinking consumers.
She wrote for all ages although there was a age-range guide for each series so we'd start with something like Noddy or Mr Twiddle which I loved and move through to a series like Malory Towers and the Famous Five to the very top end Junior Fiction and the cusp of Young Adult Fiction and adult fiction often tied to what we studied for English Literature around our mid teens.
I'm revisiting the Famous Five series after talking about them in 2012 mainly because of they way chunks of the situations around the lives of George, Dick, Julian, Anne and Timmy the dog have been altered dramatically that they no long ring true even if the basics of the plot remain.
What I'm in process of doing is replacing these somewhat altered versions with originals from the 1950 and 60's in hardback form.
Although much of the adventure and the sense of being young are universal across each era's children inevitably it is set in the past with it starting in 1942 and ending in 1963 so as amazing as it may sound one thing is they used a different currency and with it a different sense the value of things. 
This was one of the first things to be changed following the UK adopting decimalization in 1971 was references to money and strangely enough the decision by one paperback publisher to put all the children in Jeans even though that wasn't what was worn back then  plus ignores a common theme in the novels which is how 'George' rejects femininity as expressed in dresses and ribbons in preference to the shorts of boys and boyish pursuits.
At a stroke a big part of her gender role rebellion is diminished by removing the contrast to that societies norms.

My start point in revisiting the series begins where I first met them in chronological childhood  and that's with the first three novels that were put in an omnibus edition which to be honest is how most likely I'd of been given these novels and so I got a 1964 copy of "The Famous Five Big Book".
That contains the very first story Five on a Treasure Island that sets very much the scene introducing us not just to the Island and the children but also to their families and the social order within it, not least that the adults are the Authority Figures and that the children are spanked (and expect to be) which was the norm back then.
More recent editions remove that completely and attempt to suggest a more negotiated form of parenting that simply wasn't the case and what the children  who read the stories originally would not of recognized because the lives of Julian, George, Anne and Dick where very much like theirs in that way!

Some of the copies I have do have their original dust jackets, some of which are like this - a little the worse for wear although I used transparent tape to repair a few tears on this one - that are enjoyable to look at although because so many got lost or badly damaged copies with them tend to at a premium regardless of the actual condition of the book itself.
For me then while I love the dust jackets, it's the original text and the illustrations by Elaine Soper that have never been surpassed that are the reasons why I'm replacing the other set and enjoying re-reading the stories as they were originally written as I identified with them as that child.
I don't appreciate having my memories messed with.

Links:
Famous Five 21 book set (Joanne is reading for pleasure)

Christmas report

Christmas here was a bit different for a few reasons one being we didn't go out for lunch between some inter family stuff that tested patience to the limits and Mommy and I being very unwell just before and still recovering  so even if we had, it really would of been a waste as we'd not of eaten much.
With that we ate at home between ourselves,with the Turkey being put in over night to cook right through, vegetables done across the morning and the Christmas Pudding zapped in two minutes flat before eating!
As it was 2015 I had to help out getting stuff out, setting the table, clearing the table and with washing up.
I did have a number of presents this year although somethings are in transit as as I wasn't well enough to organize them to just before Christmas which does give me something to look forward toward I guess.

A perennial with me is comic annuals which are a direct run on from the Christmas presents I has as a child featuring special and sometimes Christmas themed cartoon strips from my all time favourite characters such as the no longer running apart from specials, Dandy which had Korky the cat, Desperate Dan of Cow Pie fame and others in it. 

The BIG comic with me as a Child was Britain's Beano a veritable parallel world for those of us who were of official school age  during the 70's thru 90's it's peak period with it's own school and characters in the form of the Bash Street Kids, my heroine Minnie the Minx and Dennis the Menance who like us also got smacked if they were naughty (and they were!).
As time went by some strips like Lord Snooty got retired and others like Bananaman who did have a tv series too joined the old favourites and the questionable practise of featuring in the news real people like pop stars and the like in story-lines crept in.

To say I like Jacqueline Wilson's stories is an understatement outside of the likes of Enid Blyton and co which I was raised on (and as you may know do have a good number of complete series by), she treads the line well between old school story telling but set in the world of todays children (and sadly some of society's issues) producing funny, very readable and thought provoking work.
This is set of short stories, some Christmas related featuring some of her best loved characters like Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather with quizzes too which is just the sort of thing I like, a more middles take on an annual in a paperback book format.

Mommy bought me  this, Maddie who is a 14 inch soft rag doll who I think is adorable in her pink candy stripped outfit and some grey long school socks which is a very sensible choice for an adult middle like me.

My Auntie brought me a selection box which was a super inspired choice on her part as she not formally known about my Middle side but can tell straight I'm very child-like.

To be honest I'd sooner people either asked ideally or just bought me things more like this because I just so not relate to *adult* likes and that at all so buying for a middle child really is more sensible.

Learning past and present

One difference between the kind of education I had and that of many children today centres around how we were taught.
For most of my education for instance generally the teacher led the class learning determining what the days topic was in any given subject. They often would dictate notes or write them down on a chalk board for you to copy to your exercise book sometimes with drawings or diagrams too which was fun if you were not good at writing or spelling things as you'd struggle to keep up.
Sometimes we'd have school made duplicated work sheets for some subjects such as Combined Science to complete as we did experiments with bunsen burners, electricity and magnets.
In History we often read from and makes notes using set text books and all homework (and there was heaps of it!) was to be completed by hand.

This scene would be almost familiar to me in high school as we'd move from old style individual wooden desks to clusters of tables and plastic chairs except for one thing.
That's right, where the girl is sat we'd have our exercise book but she has a laptop which looking at this picture closely is something most of her peers do not suggesting she has 'special needs' and has been given one for 'writing up things' with.
That is something I'd of benefited from personally as my hand writing was poor and spelling pretty rotten too.
A number of schools today have huge screens,  some interactive, for teaching with rather than chalkboards (they were called Blackboards until some edict came down saying that word was racist!) but debate rages as to whither or not this is any more effective from the chalkboard and rote learning we had.

Chilling little style

Well Sammy's moved so while Ik is down I thought I'd get this weeks entry written up.
One of things I recall thinking about heaps was about everything that would happen after the last period of afternoon school finished. When I went to day school it was kind of easy in that you'd pair off with a few friends and call in at the neighbourhood store to fix some candy to share while you talked about the day and what you thought of Master x's lesson.

At boarding school we had it back in the dorm but because tea was early it was frowned on as it 'spoilt your tea' so you'd leave them for later or weekends.
I have always loved lollipops still walk around the sidewalks  licking them that speaks volumes about me I guess.
Actually I have a pinafore dress not a million miles like that of the girl on picture and used to read while sucking on a lollipop so perhaps one way to visualize me is think of that girl at least in spirit if not in dress. The only thing that matters is having fun reading and sucking your lollipops.

Link:Lollipops

Find-outers

Hallo there.
I've a bit of blocked up nose today so I'm doing some schoolwork complete in my full uniform today apart from some reading too.
That takes me to today's subject.
There are many types of stories written such as those centred on fantasy, romances, animals, adventures and so on but one genre I struggle with is the Detective Story usually because it requires  you use more short term memory while reading to piece together from the clues you're told, who really did it.
Unfortunately for someone like me reading something like that is like trying to run complex games on old computer with a slow processor and very little RAM (it might load up but attempting play is sluggish and may even stall!).
Fortunately I found a detective  mystery  series by Enid Blyton that were written for children from around nine years upward that I can follow reasonably well.

This series goes under the name the 'Find-outers' after the title the children who form a detective club called themselves dedicating themselves to solving mysteries and outwitting the local Police Constable, Mr. Goon who they christen 'Clear-orf' after what he shouts at them accusing them of meddling and otherwise interfering in the LAW.
The leader of the club is Frederick Algernon Trotteville  who is a boastful as well as cheeky outsider to the others in the village of Peterswood but is actually quite bright being good at languages and art at his boarding school. Because of his build he's called Fatty although he is quite physically fit playing school sports.
His deputy is Larry who is really called Laurence and they are joined by Daisy (his sister), Pip alias Peter, and Bets (Elizabeth) who is just 9 and the youngest of the group.
Fatty has a dog called Buster who obeys Fatty's commands well.
Upon being formed they call themselves "Five find-outers and Dog".
Mr Goon is probably the most incompetent policeman ever to taken on investigating mysteries in their area and the children in the first story, "the Mystery of the Burnt Cottage", strike up a very good relationship with the Inspector of Goon's force much to the displeasure of Pc Goon, especially when the inspector realizes just how good the Find-outers really are solving the mystery Goon failed to do!
There are in total 15 stories in the series which were all  issued by Dean's in the Rewards series in 1990 with reprints from that edition keeping the typeset narrative intact through most of the 90's whereas current editions like most of Enid's output have been revised and rendered 'politically correct'.
Thankfully it's easy to find these editions but Deans also did something else, as with the Schools series Enid wrote, they did two omibus editions each having three stories from the first six published and the top one issued in 1992  is mine (it's a 1994 reprint).

This one (the second in the set) has 'Spiteful letters', 'Missing Necklace' and 'Hidden House' in it and was published in 1994 although my copy is the 1998 reprint and both keep original illustrations and text in them, making a great starter set you can get cheaply used.
I'm really enjoying reading this series, more than I thought I'd of been able to howling at how Fatty and the gang put Clear-orf off the scent as Fatty's boisterous wit as well as his genius with disguises.
They also are a period reminder of how life was in sleepy English villages back then before policing moved mainly to the town and your only contact with the police was in their distinctive 'Panda car' they came out to visit your patch in where at the time this was written your Policeman lived in a Policehouse in your village and he patrolled it.
So far I've picked Mystery of the Pantomime Cat, Mystery of the Invisible Thief and Mystery of the Banshee Towers to go with the omnibus editions.

Reading and more on change of circumstances

Well the start of the week is among us and as you've no doubt read this week will like all my weeks from here on in will be different meaning I'll have to fill the extra time I have to be my little self up by myself which should prove most interesting.
Tomorrow, I'll be working for a few hours across the morning at my own pace talking with people and from that helping them out for the people I was employed by because it's a skill my health situation aside I'm actually rather good at.
I liked the people we get for the most part (you'll always get the odd one that's a bit awkward), finding our conversations rewarding apart from learning about other peoples circumstances. Anyway my leaving employment isn't and really shouldn't be seen by anyone as just more time for to be online for hours at a time just because someone may like a bit of company although it'll enable me to visit a few sites more often where I can have fun people who know me there and I love their company a lot. Their support during this period means a lot to me, personally.

One thing I will probably be doing more of is reading which for all my difficulties with it, is something I'm really enjoying right now and one site has an upcoming readathon I'll be able to take part in, sharing observations around the story as we all read together.

This week I've been reading the Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton which is about a group of children - Jo, Bessie and Fanny - who having moved to the Country, encounter a  most odd wood at the end of their garden - The Enchanted Wood where pixies, fairies and others live. Growing in this wood is the Fareway Tree which initially the children climb that leads to the top where you can enter lands, lands that change regularly where many an adventure is had often featuring Moon-Face who has a face just like the moon and Silkie who has hair just like silk.

Some of the lands are really magical like Nursery Rhyme Land or the Land of Presents, cautionary such as the Land of Do-as-you-please or a bit nasty like the Land of Tempers. Well, would you liked to be surrounded by people always in a bad temper?
My copies of The Fareaway Tree and the Folk of  the Faraway tree are copies I had from my chronological childhood being printed around 1971 and1972 but the first book of the series the Enchanted Wood is a newer copy from 1987, all just being decimalized but otherwise keeping the same text as earlier editions which isn't the case with the current ones with name changes for the three children, gollywogs being removed and any mentioning in passing of slaps or spanking as punishment removed.

Related to that and again from my original copies from the early 1970's I read Wishing Tree series (in the original series there but two books) which are fun to read. The plot is essentially that of two children, Peter and Molly who go to an antique shop to by their mother a present and come back with a chair that, when wishes are made has the magical ability to fly. They discover and make friends with a pixie called Chinky and have adventures flying in the Wishing Chair meeting also sorts of amazing and sometimes slightly scary characters.
As with Fareway Tree, these two books (Adventures of the Wishing Chair and the Wishing Chair Again) have been extensively 'revised' in their current editions to remove all the stuff so-called 'Politically Correct' people have issues with even mentioning.
Thankfully for those without copies, the Deans hardback Rewards series are easy to find used in at least acceptable condition being in print until at least 1990 where the heavy revisions came in.
Malory Towers revisited:
I got used the unbutchered text editions in the form of a W H Smith hardback Omibus edition of the first four novels and the separate Deans hardbook Rewards series ones from 1990 of the last two.
There are entire paragraphs missing from the current ones and the 'PC' alterations do effect the characters responses to some important storylines in the books. Rereading them, it all makes more sense.

Children of Cherry Tree Farm

I grew up in the countryside in a small hamlet with just one store and public house that we spent summers outside drinking lemonade in when we weren't playing out  so it isn't that surprising I love stories about the kinds of communities I lived in.
Enid Blyton wrote three super books that deal with this topic that I adore.
We start with four children Rory (13), Sheila, Benjy and Penny - that's the youngest at 7 - who lived in London are sent to their Aunt Bess and Uncle Tim's farm, Cherry Tree Farm,as they were poorly to recuperate while their folks were on business in America.
It's an old country farm with thatched roofs and little mechanization.

They learn about country life and lore encountering Tammylan a person who understands about looking after animals and explains the them all about different species and their role in the countryside. For the period this novel is set in Tammylan has enlightened views about the importance of the environment. The fresh air soon helps the children recover and also ignites their imaginations.
They learn about how farming families pull together and have a pleasant surprise as their folks upon returning decided too forgo their city life to return to farming.
The Children of Willow Farm and More adventures on Willow Farm are the stories of bringing a farm back to life, establishing new crops together with livestock as it is a mixed farm and the trails and tribulations of running the farm that the children increasingly learn to do for themselves.
The children learn about being responsible, working as a team and dealing with disappointments.
What I love about these books isn't just the story about the children it's how carefully information about wildlife and farming practise is slipped into the book so you learn about the basics of agriculture and making things like milk, cheese and cream!

Guilty secrets.

We might begin by saying according to Google, I have now 14 followers of this blog and it is going to circulated a bit more widely with a short introductory message.
For most of this week I've been reading a mixture of Enid Blyton's Secrets series with the first two stories in their 1960's paperback editions as modern editions haven't so much edited as partially re-written the first chapters that are essential to understand why 4 children would runway in this period from their guardians.

Guilty secret time:

Okay, the eagle eyed will spot a modern no-no on the front cover of this, one of the original three story collections in the Amelia Jane stories.
Amelia is a home made ragdoll who lives in the toybox with the other twos of the children who own them with a teddy bear, sailor boy, wooden mouse and a clown as well as a 'golly' a black faced doll if you grew up in the 70's or before you may well have had in your toybox.
I have fond memories of my toy box I can assure you with dolls teddy bears and even a golly (eek).
Amelia being home made hasn't been what we'd call socialized and so is gets very bored doing incredibly naughty damaging things, playing with matches, being very rude and spiteful, just like many young children, something that no doubt makes it very easy to identify with.In some respects it's almost a moral tract showing action and consequence through the adult narration.
The other toys do with the help of the brownies (another no-no in modern editions) restore order. Amelia has to stand in the corner  and is smacked, just rather like I was at that age for doing pretty much the same things cos like any kid I was capable of 'naughty'.
'Golly' is a no-no too but anyone who has read these stories know he's a really sweet but strong character who will stand up for himself and isn't afraid to take the lead on bring Amelia back under control.
I guess the 'Golly' problem lies with parts of his depiction having prominent eyes and red lips being too close for some to 'blacked up' white actors who some see as promoting a negative stereotype of black people although Enid Blyton sure doesn't in her stories and in the UK at least 'Golly' or 'Gollywogg' was never frequently used as a racial insult.
Given I at least have been called a 'muppet several times before now and no one has insisted on removing that word from public tv and literature, shouldn't we judge a book by it's content and only take offence when a character is being portrayed in an offensive way?