Children's Books > T Children's Books > Enid Blyton

Advantages: Easy reading, enhances imagination
Disadvantages: none!

Join in the adventures of Dick, Bessie and Jo when they move to a new house with an enchanted wood at the bottom of their garden!! As they explore though the trees that whisper "wisha-wisha-wisha", they come across an incredibly tall tree in the middle of the wood which houses all sorts of unlikely fairy folk and has different fruits they higher you climb! Main characters include Moonface, Silky the fairy and the Saucepan Man who clatters wherever ...
...into a different land that stays for a few days or even a week. Will it be The Land of Spells? Or The Land of Parties? Or...*shudder*...The Land of Witches? And will they always get back to the ladder in time before the land moves on? A fantastic read! ... Read review

Advantages: Adventure, excitement and intrigue
Disadvantages: Can seem a little outdated by today's standards

...none I like better than the "Adventure" series of books featuring 4 children and a parrot. Unlike the Secret Seven and Famous Five series, I've always thought of the Adventure series as being more "grown up." For a start, it doesn't feature jolly adventures in caravans, and there's no meeting up with loveable gipsies who help the children out in their time of need. Instead the adventures are darker, and more dangerous, with the children often finding ...
...THE PLOT: In the Valley of Adventure the four children - Jack, Lucy-Ann, Philip and Dinah, and Kiki the parrot stumble upon an adventure when they try to go for a night flight with a friend of their mother's. Unfortunately for them they end up on the wrong plane, one flown by smugglers! After a frightening journey they find themselves in a remote and lonely valley, trying to hide their presence from the smugglers and work out a way home. Whilst ... Read review

Advantages: Lovely timeless stories with a little moral message too in some of them
Disadvantages: Magic chairs are hard to find

...years old, my mother read the Wishing chair to us ,one story each night before bed. Molly and Peter are shopping in an antique shop when they are frightened by a sudden commotion.They sit together in an old chair and wish that they were back home and the chair lifts them up and flies out through the door and home! They do try to send it back but it has decided to stay and so it becomes their own wishing chair! They discover that the chair must ...
...and sometimes that is in the middle of the night. It is the children's secret. One day they visit a Giants castle ,where they discover a poor little pixie who has been enslaved and they rescue him and take him to live with them in their playroom which is a big shed in the garden. After that ,he always watches for the chair to grow its wings so that he can fetch the children from the house and perches on the back when they fly to a new adventure. ... Read review

Advantages: Works the imagination. Excellent read.
Disadvantages: It has an End!

This is the third book in the faraway tree series and is written in much the same way as The Enchanted Wood and The Magic Faraway Tree. All the same characters are in this book except Cousin Dick has been replaced by Curious Connie who is a spoiled little girl of the childrens mother. If you haven`t come accross The Enchanted Wood or The Magic Faraway Tree I advise you read these two first as they are a series of books. THE STORYLINE Three children ...
...got a new job in the country. They live in a little cottage just down a lane from The Enchanted Wood. In the first two books the children discovered The Enchanted Wood which was inhabitted by fairy folk and in the middle of the Wood was The Faraway Tree. The children had made friends with the inhabitants of the tree. There were pixies and fairies a man who wore saucepans, a lady who never stops washing and a curious gent with a big round head who ... Read review

Advantages: Easy to read, stimulates the imagination
Disadvantages: language a little dated in places

The Wishing Chair is a story about Mollie and Peter, two children who came by a magic chair. The chair would grow wings when it felt like flying and the children could hop on it and it would fly them out of the window not knowing where it would take them. I thought this book to be somewhat akin to the Faraway Tree series. Whilst the stories in this collection are very good, I did feel they lacked a little originality. Being such a big Enid Blyton ... Read review