My bruises have bruises. I'm blaming the cheerleading. Review writing is a whole lot less dangerous....
My bruises have bruises. I'm blaming the cheerleading. Review writing is a whole lot less dangerous.
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Out of all the school stories that Enid Blyton wrote, Malory Towers was my favourite set. The 6 books in the series follow a group of girls at a boarding school in the south of England, with each novel describing a year in their lives. There are certain story lines and themes that run throughout the series, but each book is written so they can be read individually, and in the first couple of chapters you get all the info you need to get you up to speed on what’s been happening.
As with so many children’s books, the characters in this one always seem older than they are. I read the series through primary school, and again in the first few years of secondary, and even when I overtook them age-wise, they still seemed older than I was, if you see what I mean. They all seemed to have a lot of independence, but this could have more to do with the time in which they were written than anything else – back then I’m sure no-one would have a problem with sending a few 11 year olds off walking in the woods for a day without an adult in sight. One think I thought especially fitting in the books was the way the names tied in with the personalities of the characters. Who doesn’t remember Gwedoline Mary Lacey? An annoying twit of a girl, she was extremely spoilt and fragile and, well, lacey. Bill, on the other hand, is a tough and “manly”
as a girl can be. And, with a name like that, it’s hardly surprising that Moira is a “hard, domineering creature”. Each girl has some sort of defining character – Irene is a scatter-brained maths genius, for example, and Belinda a talented artist, especially when her subject matter is people and their various facial expressions. Alicia is smart, out-going and a quick-thinker, but prefers to use her talents for conjuring up pranks than for academia, whereas Violet is little more than a pale, wishy-washy, delicate flower. Though mainly British, there are a few foreign faces in the books including a handful of loud, brash Americans, and the adorable French teacher Mam'zelle Dupont (who was there way before Lycra, I’m sure).
The girls are, for the most part, rather wholesome. They’re not always perfect, but they’re well brought up enough to know how to behave - Darrell, for example, has a “dreadful” temper, but always manages to apologize gracefully if it gets out of hand. What a good girl she is. I always liked the chapter in the first book where she slaps Gwen, although the fact that she only gets into trouble with the other girls, rather than a staff member, ended up annoying me years later (I did the same thing to a girl at school once and promptly got a detention when she reported me).
There are very few men in the books. It’s an all girls school with a mainly female staff, and the men that do appear – fathers, brothers, cousins – only ever seem to do so at the start and end of terms. Because of this, none of the books cover subjects such as the warped love lives of teenagers – something almost any young adult book written today would do. These girls have better things to do than paint their nails and style their hair and when the odd person appears who does these things (like glamourous Zerelda who appears in the 3rd book) they’re rather perturbed.
They are school stories, but a lot of the action takes place outside the classroom (sports games, horse-riding trips, midnight feasts, swimming in their amazing sounding pool overlooking the sea). For the first few years the girls live in dormitories (just like in Harry Potter) within separate towers, or houses (ditto). They even play Lacrosse which is nothing if not a version of Quidditch just without the big hoops and, erm, magic. Most of the adventures aren’t as physically draining as in some of Blyton’s other series (the Secret, and Adventure series for example) but the books still contain thrills and suspense. Or at least they do if you’re 8 years old. They’re well-written books with very funny parts, and they’re handily split into fairly short chapters which doesn’t make reading them aloud out of the question.
Some people aren’t Blyton fans, but those who are generally like this series. It tells tales of a simpler world when all you needed was a jam sandwich and high spirits for a good time, and though the language is formal in places, and the vocab dated, it’s not hard to understand. One exception for me was that darn jam sandwich again – I was picturing the bread type and wondering how on earth you could share that between a dozen friends – and another Lacrosse, something I’d never heard of at that age. (This changed a few years later. Our secondary school, it seemed, favoured the bizarre throwing and catching game). The books are mainly fun and up-beat, but each seems to have some sort of serious event at some point – there aren’t that many deaths, but various serious illnesses an accidents crop up now and again. And that’s despite the best efforts of dear old Matron in the San.
<<Puts sensible but sexist cap on>> I would recommend these for daughters, nieces, cousins, any females in your life who are aged from 8 years. They’re sweet stories to read, the topics covered are universal while remaining pretty tame (none are going to lead to any embarrassing questions that I can foresee). Pretty much just good, clean, wholesome fun.
The 6 books in the set (titles below) retail at £3.99 each when bought individually. Full and half sets are also available, as are many second hand editions from charity shops and libraries.
· First Term at Malory Towers · Second Form at Malory Towers · Third Form at Malory Towers · Upper Fourth at Malory Towers · In the Fifth at Malory Towers · Last Term at Malory Towers
It’s one of the few Blyton series that was never made into a TV show, as far as I’m aware, though there is a computer game based on the books available though. Considering they were written in the 1940s when even electronic calculators weren’t being used in schools, that just seems wrong to me.
Find out which Malory Towers character YOU are at:
I loved these books too . My daughter found them boring!!!
Sadly real life school was nothing like it.
My friend and I practiced our netball every lunch time only to be told the team had already been picked and would not change throughout the 6 school years.
I quite fancy a midnight feast...tinned sardines on biscuits with tinned pineapple and ginger pop for me please!
mum52 21.04.2005 22:45
Great! This review brought back some happy memories. My daughter, who is now 13, has enjoyed reading them all too, although she says she'd hate to go to Boarding School :)
salem_witch 06.01.2005 07:14
I used to love reading these books. Well done on the diamond. Here are my results: Occassionally prone to fits of temper, but liked by staff and students alike. You are straightforward, honest, good-hearted Darrell Who were you?!
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