Editing Enid Blyton (section)

==Critical backlash==
A.H. Thompson, who compiled an extensive overview of censorship efforts in the United Kingdom's public libraries, dedicated an entire chapter to "The Enid Blyton Affair", and wrote of her in 1975: {{blockquote|"No single author has caused more controversy among librarians, literary critics, teachers, and other educationalists and parents during the last thirty years, than Enid Blyton. How is it that the books of this tremendously popular writer for children should have given rise to accusations of censorship against librarians in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom?"{{Sfnp|Thompson|1975|pp=137|ps=none}}}}

Blyton's range of plots and settings has been described as limited, repetitive and continually recycled.{{Sfnp|Druce|1992|p=29|ps=none}} Many of her books were critically assessed by teachers and librarians, deemed unfit for children to read, and removed from syllabuses and public libraries.{{R|ODNB}} Responding to claims that her moral views were "dependably predictable",{{Sfnp|Druce|1992|p=213|ps=none}} Blyton commented that "most of you could write down perfectly correctly all the things that I believe in and stand for&nbsp;– you have found them in my books, and a writer's books are always a faithful reflection of himself".{{Sfnp|Blyton|1952|p=104|ps=none}}

From the 1930s to the 1950s, the BBC operated a ''de facto'' ban on dramatising Blyton's books for radio, considering her to be a "second-rater" whose work was without literary merit.{{R|AdamsTelegraph}}{{R|SmallBeer}}{{Efn|Blyton submitted her first proposal to the BBC in 1936.{{R|SmallBeer}}}} The children's literary critic, [[Margery Fisher]], likened Blyton's books to "slow poison",{{R|ODNB}} and Jean E. Sutcliffe of the BBC's schools broadcast department wrote of Blyton's ability to churn out "mediocre material", noting that "her capacity to do so amounts to genius&nbsp;... anyone else would have died of boredom long ago".{{R|SutcliffeMemo}} [[Michael Rosen]], Children's Laureate from 2007 until 2009, wrote that "I find myself flinching at occasional bursts of snobbery and the assumed level of privilege of the children and families in the books".{{R|Times2012}} The children's author [[Anne Fine]] presented an overview of the concerns about Blyton's work and responses to them on [[BBC Radio 4]] in November 2008, in which she noted the "drip, drip, drip of disapproval" associated with the books.{{R|Fine}} Blyton's response to her critics was that she was uninterested in the views of anyone over the age of 12, stating that half the attacks on her work were motivated by jealousy and the rest came from "stupid people who don't know what they're talking about because they've never read any of my books".{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 2567–2573|ps=none}}

Despite criticism by contemporaries that her work's quality began to suffer in the 1950s at the expense of its increasing volume, Blyton nevertheless capitalised on being generally regarded at the time as "a more 'savoury', English alternative" to what some considered an "invasion" of Britain by American culture, in the form of "rock music, horror comics, television, teenage culture, delinquency, and [[Walt Disney|Disney]]".{{Sfnp|Rudd|2004|p=112|ps=none}}

According to [[Nicholas Tucker]], the works of Enid Blyton have been "banned from more public libraries over the years than is the case with any other adult or children's author", though such attempts to quell the popularity of her books over the years seem to have been largely unsuccessful, and "she still remains very widely read".{{Sfnp|Tucker|1990|p=7|ps=none}}

===Simplicity===
Some librarians felt that Blyton's restricted use of language, a conscious product of her teaching background, was prejudicial to an appreciation of more literary qualities. In a scathing article published in ''Encounter'' in 1958, the journalist [[Colin Welch]] remarked that it was "hard to see how a diet of Miss Blyton could help with the [[11-plus]] or even with the Cambridge English [[Tripos]]",{{R|ODNB}} but reserved his harshest criticism for Blyton's Noddy, describing him as an "unnaturally priggish&nbsp;... sanctimonious&nbsp;... witless, spiritless, snivelling, sneaking doll."{{Sfnp|Briggs|Butts|Orville Grenby|2008|p=265|ps=none}}

The author and educational psychologist [[Nicholas Tucker]] notes that it was common to see Blyton cited as people's favourite or least favourite author according to their age, and argues that her books create an "encapsulated world for young readers that simply dissolves with age, leaving behind only memories of excitement and strong identification".{{Sfnp|Tucker|1990|p=116|ps=none}} Fred Inglis considers Blyton's books to be technically easy to read, but to also be "emotionally and cognitively easy". He mentions that the psychologist Michael Woods believed that Blyton was different from many other older authors writing for children in that she seemed untroubled by presenting them with a world that differed from reality. Woods surmised that Blyton "was a child, she thought as a child, and wrote as a child&nbsp;... the basic feeling is essentially pre-adolescent&nbsp;... Enid Blyton has no moral dilemmas&nbsp;... Inevitably Enid Blyton was labelled by rumour a child-hater. If true, such a fact should come as no surprise to us, for as a child herself all other children can be nothing but rivals for her".{{Sfnp|Inglis|1982|p=189|ps=none}} Inglis argues though that Blyton was devoted to children and put an enormous amount of energy into her work, with a powerful belief in "representing the crude moral diagrams and garish fantasies of a readership".{{Sfnp|Inglis|1982|p=189|ps=none}} Blyton's daughter Imogen has stated that she "loved a relationship with children through her books", but real children were an intrusion, and there was no room for intruders in the world that Blyton occupied through her writing.{{R|Blight}}

===Accusations of racism, xenophobia and sexism===
Accusations of racism in Blyton's books were first made by [[Lena Jeger]] in the ''[[The Guardian|Guardian]]'' article published in 1966. In the context of discussing possible moves to restrict publications inciting racial hatred, Jeger was critical of Blyton's ''The Little Black Doll'', originally published in 1937.<ref>Lena Jeger, 'In Large Print', London ''Guardian'' 24 May 1966 p. 18.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Enid Blyton's Jolly Story Book (List of Contents)|url=https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/book-details.php?id=563&title=Enid+Blyton%27s+Jolly+Story+Book|website=The Enid Blyton Society|access-date=15 January 2022}}</ref> Sambo, the black doll of the title, is hated by his owner and other toys owing to his "ugly black face", and runs away. A shower of "magic rain" washes his face clean, after which he is welcomed back home with his now pink face.{{Sfnp|Druce|1992|p=43|ps=none}} [[Jamaica Kincaid]] also considers the Noddy books to be "deeply racist" because of the blonde children and the black [[golliwog]]s.{{Sfnp|Bouson|2012|p=207|ps=none}} In Blyton's 1944 novel ''[[The Island of Adventure]]'', a black servant named Jo-Jo is very intelligent, but is particularly cruel to the children.{{Sfnp|Edwards|2007|p=257|ps=none}}

Accusations of xenophobia were also made. As George Greenfield observed, "Enid was very much part of that [[between the wars]] middle class which believed that foreigners were untrustworthy or funny or sometimes both".{{Sfnp|Greenfield|1995|p=113|ps=none}} The publisher [[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]] conducted an internal assessment of Blyton's ''The Mystery That Never Was'', submitted to them at the height of her fame in 1960. The review was carried out by the author and books editor [[Phyllis Hartnoll]], in whose view "There is a faint but unattractive touch of old-fashioned xenophobia in the author's attitude to the thieves; they are 'foreign'&nbsp;... and this seems to be regarded as sufficient to explain their criminality". Macmillan rejected the manuscript,{{R|MorningHerald2005}} but it was published by [[William Collins, Sons|William Collins]] in 1961,{{Sfnp|Stoney|2011|loc=loc. 5879|ps=none}} and then again in 1965 and 1983.{{R|MorningHerald2005}}

Blyton's depictions of boys and girls are considered by many critics to be sexist.{{R|Dixon}}{{Sfnp|Fisher|1986|p=233}} In a ''Guardian'' article published in 2005, Lucy Mangan proposed that ''[[The Famous Five]]'' series depicts a power struggle between Julian, Dick and George (Georgina), in which the female characters either act like boys or are talked down to, as when Dick lectures George: "it's really time you gave up thinking you're as good as a boy".{{R|Mangan}}

===Revisions to later editions===
To address criticisms levelled at Blyton's work, some later editions have been altered to reflect more politically progressive attitudes towards issues such as race, gender, violence between young persons, the treatment of children by adults, and legal changes in Britain as to what is allowable for young children to do (e.g. purchasing fireworks) in the years since the stories were originally written; modern reprints of the Noddy series substitute teddy bears or goblins for [[golliwogs]], for instance.{{R|Geoghegan}} The golliwogs who steal Noddy's car and dump him naked in the Dark Wood in ''Here Comes Noddy Again'' are replaced in the 1986 revision by goblins, who strip Noddy only of his shoes and hat and return at the end of the story to apologise.{{Sfnp|Druce|1992|p=230|ps=none}}

''[[The Faraway Tree]]'''s Dame Slap, who made regular use of corporal punishment, was changed to Dame Snap, who no longer did so, and the names of Dick and Fanny in the same series (respective slang terms in some dialects for male and female genitals) were changed to Rick and Frannie.{{R|BradburyTelegraph}}<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.freerangekids.com/when-dick-and-fannie-became-rick-and-frannie-guest-post/ |title="When Dick and Fannie became Rick and Frannie" – Guest Post! |last= Browne |first=Kate |date=29 May 2012 |website=Free-Range Kids |access-date=30 July 2024}}</ref> Characters in the [[Malory Towers]] and [[St. Clare's (series)|St. Clare's]] series are no longer spanked or threatened with a spanking but are instead scolded. References to George's short hair making her look like a boy were removed in revisions to ''[[Five on a Hike Together]]'', reflecting the idea that girls need not have long hair to be considered feminine or normal,{{R|MorningHerald2012}} as was Anne's remark in ''The Famous Five'' that boys cannot wear pretty dresses or like girls' dolls.{{R|Spectator}} In ''[[The Adventurous Four]]'', the names of the young twin girls were updated from Jill and Mary to Pippa and Zoe, among changes prompting the Enid Blyton Society's organiser to argue that they were akin to having "a Virgin Express rushing past [[the Railway Children]] because the age of steam is over…. [W]e don't want to ruin the charm of something that was written in a particular setting."<ref>{{Cite news | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7591648.stm |title = The mystery of Enid Blyton's revival|date = 5 September 2008}}</ref>

In 2010, the publisher of the Famous Five series, [[Hodder & Stoughton|Hodder]], announced its intention to update the language used in the books, of which it sold more than half a million copies a year. The changes, which Hodder described as "subtle", mainly affect the dialogue rather than the narrative. For instance, "school tunic" becomes "uniform", "mother and father" and "mother and daddy" (this latter one used by young female characters and deemed sexist) become "mum and dad",{{R|Horn2010}} and "bathing" is replaced by "swimming" and "jersey" and "pullover" by "jumper".{{R|BradburyTelegraph}}{{R|Guardian Sept 2016}} Some commentators see the changes as necessary to encourage modern readers,{{R|Horn2010}} whereas others regard them as unnecessary and patronising.{{R|BradburyTelegraph}} In 2016, Hodder's parent company, [[Hachette (publisher)|Hachette]], announced that they would abandon the revisions, as readers' reaction showed they had not been a success.{{R|Guardian Sept 2016}}