Lashing for Blyton from silly wokes

ENID BLYTON’S Famous Five books are the latest woke victims, with a Devon library citing ‘outdated and potentially offensive language’ (Mail). Uncensored versions are being treated like contraband. These adventures of four schoolchildren and their dog were written between 1942 and 1962; the world was a totally different place with its own terminology. Quaint phrases such as ‘lashings of ginger beer’ and ‘I say!’ have fallen out of fashion.

As for other phrases deemed no longer acceptable, surely anyone over the age of ten has heard these supposedly offensive words many times and so doesn’t need protecting from them. Indeed, do any of us?

It’s sad that children’s fiction has to be censored or modernised rather than left alone to depict the innocent times in which they were set.

These books could be an escape for children from real worries. I doubt Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timmy the dog were wrapped in cotton wool, which seems the goal nowadays.

TONY BECK, Hurley, Berks. TRIGGER warnings, censorship or alterations aren’t needed for books by Enid Blyton. They have been worldwide best-sellers for the best part of a century for a good reason. They portray a time when children had real childhoods. They played outside and used their imaginations, instead of staring mutely at a screen.

G. MATTHEWS, Lancaster.

OVER 30 years of teaching, I saw how Enid Blyton’s books appealed to children. But I have to admit that I was guilty of editing her work. Reading her

books at story time, I would often change the dialogue: the boys got the girls’ lines and vice-versa. So, the boys stayed in camp to make breakfast while the girls explored tunnels.

I’d still make the changes, but would draw attention to them.

JANET ENTWISTLE, Chelmsford, Essex. WHEN I was little, I couldn’t wait for the latest Enid Blyton book. Children view things differently to adults and

should not be manipulated into seeing more in a book than they need to. Why can’t these stories be left alone and seen for what they are: pure enjoyment.

I VERY much welcome the news that Enid Blyton books are being ‘woked over’. It will make my complete original collections of The Famous Five and The Secret Seven more valuable.