The Enchanted Wood - Enid Blyton > Reviews (9)

Enid Blyton was a British writer whose career spanned 40 years in which time she published over 700 children's books - some of her characters including The Famous Five, The Secret Seven and more famously Noddy and Big Ears and the other folk of Toyland.

This book is a particular favourite of mine - i remember as a 7 year old sitting around the teacher intently listening as everday she read 2-3 pages of this book to us before hometime.

I passed my love of it onto my younger sisters and am now reading bits of it to little one who loves it just as much as i did and still do.

It was first published in 1946 and as you read you get the feeling that it is set in a different era - children who drink hot milk with biscuits at bedtime, grow vegetables and weed the garden, help mother with the chores around the house - a pre -war feel to it - really easy going and uncomplicated.

The children and their parents have moved from the big smokey town to the countryside as there father has taken a job there - they move into a cottage on the outskirts of a forest called The Enchanted Wood

The main characters are Jo, the eldest boy, Bessie the middle sister and Fanny the youngest.

On exploring the Enchanted Wood they discover the Magic Faraway Tree and make friends with the many characters who live amongst its branches.

Theres Moon-Face who has a face round like the moon and loves toffee -he lives at the very top of the tree and has a slide called the slippery slip which runs from inside his house all the way to the bottom of the Faraway Tree - and for a toffee he will allow you to use it!

Theres Silky a very kind and friendly fairy who gets her name because of her long silky hair - she makes Pop Biscuits which go pop as soon as you put them in your mouth and fill your mouth with honey.

The Angry Pixie who is a very rude little man.

The Saucepan Man who cant hear a thing because the clattering on his saucepans has made him partially deaf and many more fun characters.

If you climb to the very top of the Faraway Tree you can walk into a different land almost everday - theres a cloud right at the top with a hole through the middle and when the children climb through thats when they begin their adventures - they visit the Land of Take What You Want and the Land of Birthdays amongst others.

The adventures can be nice or sometimes they can take a turn for the worse - you just never know how it will turn out although you can always be assured the children get home eventually.

A lovely feel good book written at a time when life was simple and which will keep the kids engrossed for hours - even years!

Very few books like this around nowadays - theres no violence, no attitude - just a very easy going magical feel to it.

Would recommend this a hundred times over - a truly wonderful read for younger readers - the ones who still believe in Santa and fairies and the kind - there again i still read it and I'm 33.

This book was part of trilogy - the others in the series being the The Folk of Faraway Tree and The Magic Faraway Tree.

Selling from around £4.99.

Classified as Childrens Fiction.