Mr. Pink-Whistle Interferes

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This book is a book written for babies, and me reading it as a grown-ass adult is going to result in some amount of eye-rolling, which is not really its fault because it's written for very young children. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2020-08-22 11:07:49 Boxid IA1913502 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier Born in Plymouth, England in 1904, Cloke never trained formally as an artist and was largely self taught. [1] She was the older sister of concert pianist Olive Cloke. [1] Their father was a bank manager. [1] She began her career as an illustrator in the 1920s with W. R. Chambers Publishers. [1] Her first work of note for that publisher was as the artist for The Radiant Way children's book series. [1] She continued to illustrate children's books for the next seven decades, working for most major publishers in the United Kingdom. [1] Some of the books she illustrated include, Alice in Wonderland, Red Riding Hood Goes to the Teddy-Bear's Picnic, Joy Bells, Little Boy Blues Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales, Little Folk's First Book, Enid Blyton's Everyday Book series, My Best Book of Enid Blyton Stories and Woodland Tales among many others. She also illustrated several religious books for children. [2] She worked for many years as an artist for Medici Cards, designing more than 100 greeting cards for that company. [1] Her work was also featured in the magazine Playhour. I consider the Mr. Pink-Whistle stories as relevant today as they ever were, despite having been written in the 1940s-50s. For children to read about a little man who "goes about the world putting wrong things right" is inspiring as well as comforting. Pink-Whistle is motivated by a love of justice, feeling great compassion for anyone who is treated badly, and he realises that merely feeling sorry is not enough. As he says in 'The Little Secret Man', "It's no good being sorry about things if you don't do something to put them right!" How many campaigners for justice have been inspired by Enid Blyton, I wonder, or even specifically by Mr. Pink-Whistle? To empathise with Mr. Pink-Whistle is to aspire to make a difference in society. The idea of children aspiring to be like the little man is made explicit in some of the tales, including 'Mr. Pink-Whistle's Party' in which Merry declares: "I love you, Mr. Pink-Whistle. You go round the world putting wrong things right - and that's what I'm going to do too!" He replies, "You do it already," indicating that he recognises in her a kindred spirit. Merry sums up the Pink-Whistle stories when she says, "...my Mother says everyone ought to do something to help other people, and if we can't see something we've got to look for it."

As can be expected from a book of this type, both the prose and the plot are very simple. Blyton's language is very no-frills, focusing on actions rather than emotions. She tells rather than shows a little more than I like, but I guess any more and it would get a little to complicated for beginner readers. The plot pretty much follows variations of "person is wronged by circumstances/other people" and the protagonist then spends time helping or punishing accordingly. Just thought I'd mention that, as well as the three books listed in the poll, there's a fourth volume of Pink-Whistle stories called Mr. Pink-Whistle's Big Book, first published in 1958. Dean didn't do a printing of that book and therefore it's not as well-known as the others.

Have you got a favourite Mr Pink-Whistle illustrator, in regard to both cover and internal illustrations? Who? Why do you like his/her work so much? The Adventures of Mr Toad from Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, adapted by Jane Carruth. London, Award, 1995. I wrote a 2-part article on Mr. Pink-Whistle for Enid Blyton Society Journals 38 and 39 (Spring and Summer 2009) so I'll use extracts from that article in my answers. I only have 'Pink-Whistle's Party' now, and my favourite story is 'Mr Pink-Whistle Has Some Fun'. It's the one where he makes himself invisible, follows two trouble-makers home and accuses them of their crimes in front of other people and their families.

Beauty and the Beast, and other tales, retold by Roger Lancelyn Green. Leicester, Edmund Ward, 1948. The Young Adventurers series (2004), originally published as the Riddle Series (1997) by HarperCollins. Would you like to see Mr Pink-Whistle make a jump to other media - television, film, animated shorts, comic strips, toys and so on? If so, what would you like to see?Little Otter is Missing from Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, adapted by Jane Carruth. London, Award, 1995. There have been plenty of reprints - a fairly common occurrence with Blyton books, and the well-known EB artist, Dorothy Wheeler, has contributed plenty of pictures.