Here's Carolyn with her Summer Book choice.
For my summer
book I have chosen a children’s author who is probably one of the most read in
the UK, if not worldwide and whose books dominated my own childhood. Even her
signature is instantly recognisable to millions, adorning as it does the front
of many of her books. I am talking of course about Enid Blyton.
Blyton died
in the year I was born, but her books continue to sell massively today, for
instance wiki says that over 2 million Famous Five books are sold each year,
and that is just one of her series. Blyton was also responsible for creating
Noddy, The Secret Seven, The Five Find-Outers, Malory Towers, St Clares,
Naughty Amelia Jane, Mr Pinkwhistle, Mr Twiddle, The Faraway Tree, The Wishing
Chair, The Naughtiest Girl in the School, The Adventure of series, The Secret
of series, The Barney Mysteries and many other series and stand-alone books.
She also wrote a long standing column in Teacher’s World magazine and other
articles. Her output was 600 books.
I don’t
think I really need to say much about Blyton, so much has been written, and if
you are interested a cursory google will lead you to lots of books, articles
and websites. Her books are now collectable, especially in early editions,
although more recent paperbacks of the more well-known titles are of course not.
There has been a lot of controversy about her, firstly over her use of simple
language and repetitive plots and then later over her dated and xenophobic
attitudes towards sexism and racism. It is taken for granted in many books that
the boys protect the girls and do the adventurous parts whilst the girls keep
the camp tidy and it is enough proof of probably criminality that someone
sounds foreign.
The Famous
Five series was one of my favourite summer reads, although different books in
the series do take part during various times of year. However they always have
a summer feel to me, and the iconic image is of the five out exploring in boats
or on bikes, wearing shorts and drinking ginger beer. The first book is the one
I am highlighting today and takes place on a ‘Treasure Island, Kirrin Island
that belongs to one of the five, George, a girl who wants to be a boy. Her
three cousins, Julian, Dick and Anne come to visit and along with George’s dog,
Timmy, first manage to make friends despite George’s initial reluctance and
then to explore the island, of course having adventures and finding treasure
along the way.
The books
were initially illustrated by Eileen Soper who was an artist producing etchings
and a royal academician. As an artist her work had two strands, depicting
children and depicting wildlife, although in later life she devoted more time
to wildlife, becoming a founder member of the Society for Wildlife Artists. Her
illustrations of the Famous Five books coloured my view of the characters, and
I visualise them very much in that vein. I also find them much truer to the
characters as they appear in the books, at the time they were written and set
than the more recent updated versions with all the characters wearing jeans.
Project
For the
project this season I’ve decided to go with a treasure map. There are lots of
ways this could be done. Your map could be a real map to buried treasure or a
map to a special place. You could invent a map based on traditional elements
such as ‘Dead Man’s Cove’, ‘Here be Dragons’ ‘X makes the spot’ etc. You could
make it a more personal treasure map and use it to show a life journey to a
special point (eg through a pregnancy or engagement). Or you could go and find
treasure using a real map and do some geocaching!
My treasure map is a map of the
area I lived in as a child taken from Google. I have highlighted a lot of the
places that were special to me in some way and notated the map. I did a general
‘old’ background for the page with torn edges, and this lets the pages before
and after show through, so this is how I have photographed it.
Thank you Carolyn
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