The Famous Five and The Mystery of the Post Traumatic Circus. Lent Day 17

As Gray gets older I have taken it upon myself to introduce him to the iconic books of my childhood. Every time we go up to my childhood home on the farm I pilfer a book or two. There is something deeply sentimental about reading the exact same pages that one read as a child to ones child.

We’re not quite ready for Narnia and the like but I have found that Roald and Enid do a good job of bridging the gap between the colourful, picturesque books Gray is used to and the spartan, black and white books he’s going to have to get used to. Both these authors dangle a carrot every so often with a sketch every four pages so at least Gray has something to look at occasionally. 

I have, however, encountered some problems. Roald is hundreds. His stories are so delightfully left of centre that, if anything, he affords us the opportunity to be creative and playful and magical. Enid, in the other hand, is actually slightly appalling. 

I know that she was writing at a very different time in history and there were things like wars and the like to contend with but oh my word she is, in a word, a bigot. 

Now I know I’m being very harsh on this woman but she is literally an icon for several generations of children. She is certainly the voice for some of my greatest desires as a young girl. It is she who had and still has a tremendous power in the shaping of literally  millions of young psyches. 

I watched the film about her several years ago where her true identity as a person- including her very austere and detached attitude as a mother - is revealed. The film looked at her critically and so I have for some time regarded her as a human and not a magical fairy. We are all human and there are certain things that we flourish in and some things that we’re not so hot at. And as someone who is pretty forthcoming about my own flaws I can in no way judge Enid as a person for her imperfections.

My concern, however, is that we’re still reading her books. I know the newer versions have been tweaked - names have been changed and stories slightly adjusted - but we are all still celebrating an author who was racist, sexist and lacking in rather a lot of empathy.

I am currently reading Gray the Mistletoe farm series about three cousins who have to go and live with their farm cousins after their house burns down. 

First off the oldest townie, Cyril, is clearly gay. Apart from a fairly effeminate physical description words like foppish, sensitive and arrogant also come into play. He has his own, peculiar set of friends at his old school who are similar to him and he really battles when he arrives at his new school with his brawny, taciturn, sporty cousin Jack in tow. He is painted as a fairly unkind stereotype and it is only once he becomes more farmy that he earns some street cred.

Then little Roderick, the youngest cousin, arrives at the farm clearly dealing with post traumatic stress disorder after witnessing his house burn down and seeing his mother carted off to some nursing home after she suffers from a nervous breakdown. He is shoved in the box room at the top of the old farm house and is told to pull himself together because he is a big boy now and needs to stop being a mummy’s boy. He is 10. Every night he suffers from nightmares and flashbacks and for quite some time is pretty much ignored by everyone. 

His sensitive (incompetent) mother is vilified because she can’t cope and refuses to help in the aftermath of the fire. She may actually just be lazy or, ironically enough, a bad mother like Enid was reported to have been but if she is suffering from any kind of mental illness there is very little space for compassion for her on the pages. There is, however, a lot of time for the ruddy-faced, callous-handed farmers wife Linnie who cooks the food, runs the household and ignores signs of trauma while her silent, grumpy husband is on the farm all day. 

Enid also has an interesting attitude towards tom boys. I’ve recently finished reading a Famous Five book and George (Georgina) is painted in a fairly fascinating light. She has short hair, wears boys clothes and seems to never want to take off her riding breeches. All the children in all Enid’s books never want to take off their riding breeches. George’s very feminine cousin is seen as a paragon of womanhood - always cleaning up (because the boys just don’t know how to) and seeing to the picnics and worrying that the violent gypsey (always a violent gypsey) will run off with Timmy. 

I’ll give Enid credit for including children at different places of the gender spectrum but there is still some very decided scorn levelled at the children who don’t quite fit into a very sexist idea of gender roles.  

I could go on forever - Noddy has quite a kak time. Quite a few beatings and such happen in Toyland. 

In a nutshell, however, I think I may need to reconsider the voices I want shaping my children’s imaginations. Enid Blyton had an exceptional imagination but perhaps a degree in child psychology would have made her a kinder author for children who are a little bit different or a little bit broken or a little bit left of field. 

If we are hoping for the generation of children that we are raising to be both resilient and compassionate then maybe the books that speak into a new spirit of childhood should be the ones we are seeking out.