Just read in Sunday TImes ....... Enid Blyton is "not in top ten" childrens' authors 1st time ever, because kids "can;t understand her archaic vocabulary"! Blimey.
Just read in Sunday TImes ....... Enid Blyton is "not in top ten" childrens' authors 1st time ever, because kids "can;t understand her archaic vocabulary"! Blimey.
I've been reading EB with my son recently. Some words I have to explain, but I can't understand a parent not wanting a child to learn that breadth of vocabulary.
How do they converse with their own children without getting bored by the conversation if it's so limited.
When my son was young (he is 22 now), we were always reading books together. He didn't much like Enid Blyton but it wasn't because of the "old" vocabulary, it was more because of the old-fashioned ideas she had.
Everyone was very middle-class and most had a cook and a maid and stay in a nursery when they are young. Children should be seen and not heard and get spankings or whippings for every little thing. Enid Blyton was known not to like children and I think if you consider her books it shows in the way children are treated.
I did read the Noddy books to him when he was of pre-school age and he quite liked them. He also read some of the Secret Seven books but even with them, it seemed so different to his life as children then were allowed so much freedom as compared to children today.
Also neither of us liked the way E.B. used words such as Fathead, Bighead and so on, especially as I always made it clear that it was not kind to do that.
E.B.'s books seem to continue to be very popular, and I think it is quite ok for children to enjoy them as long as they also read more unbiased books as well.
Thinking about it, it wasn't just that they were written long ago, it must have been more about her attitudes as he loved some older books, such as Tom's Midnight Garden, The Narnia series, The Jennings books, The Railway Children and the Borrowers.
Yeah, not politically correct, but that's what children are really like. They form peer-group gangs, and call outsiders names ........
Maybe this is now much worse! As in school bullying, with occasional suicides, etc .........
There's no bullying as such in Jennings - I suppose a prep school bully would "get a nasty thrashing" (problem sorted), and we know that Christians don't bully of course, but has anyone heard of Tom Brown's Schooldays?
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http://www.britainnews.net/story/720813
Surely you mean "golly"?:D
I've been reading EB with my son recently. Some words I have to explain, but I can't understand a parent not wanting a child to learn that breadth of vocabulary.
How do they converse with their own children without getting bored by the conversation if it's so limited.
Everyone was very middle-class and most had a cook and a maid and stay in a nursery when they are young. Children should be seen and not heard and get spankings or whippings for every little thing. Enid Blyton was known not to like children and I think if you consider her books it shows in the way children are treated.
I did read the Noddy books to him when he was of pre-school age and he quite liked them. He also read some of the Secret Seven books but even with them, it seemed so different to his life as children then were allowed so much freedom as compared to children today.
Also neither of us liked the way E.B. used words such as Fathead, Bighead and so on, especially as I always made it clear that it was not kind to do that.
E.B.'s books seem to continue to be very popular, and I think it is quite ok for children to enjoy them as long as they also read more unbiased books as well.
Thinking about it, it wasn't just that they were written long ago, it must have been more about her attitudes as he loved some older books, such as Tom's Midnight Garden, The Narnia series, The Jennings books, The Railway Children and the Borrowers.
Maybe this is now much worse! As in school bullying, with occasional suicides, etc .........
There's no bullying as such in Jennings - I suppose a prep school bully would "get a nasty thrashing" (problem sorted), and we know that Christians don't bully of course, but has anyone heard of Tom Brown's Schooldays?