Magic Faraway Tree Set (4 book set)

Product Information

So, I’m not sure they’ll make particularly gripping films, but I’ll probably be dragged to see them. Because, just like I did, my daughter loves them – even the Saucepan Man, whose bad hearing makes for endless (unbearable for an adult, hilarious for a child) jokes. The Faraway Tree is a series of popular novels for children by British author Enid Blyton. The titles in the series are The Enchanted Wood (1939), The Magic Faraway Tree (1943), The Folk of the Faraway Tree (1946) and Up the Faraway Tree (1951).

I've had to dig out the original creased, coverless versions of these books that I had as a child so my own kids can get the proper story. Five stars for those; two stars for the neutered rewrite. The main characters are Jo, Bessie and Fanny (updated in recent revisions to Joe, Beth and Frannie), who are three siblings. Fanny is the youngest, Bessie is next in age and Jo is their big brother. They live near the Enchanted Wood and are friends of the residents of the Faraway Tree. Other characters include: In this novel we are introduced to the lives of a family with 3 young children, Jo, Bessie and Fanny.Running for a total of four books, these were some of Blyton’s most enduring creations, one’s which stand the test of time to this very day. In the past there has been a television adaptation, with ten minute episodes of mini-adventures being aired in 1997. Plans to adapt it for the big-screen, though, are currently underway, as the director Sam Mendes has acquired the rights through his production company ‘Neal Street Productions’, with the intention of creating a major live-action film of the novels.

When Joe, Beth and Frannie move to a new home, an enchanted wood is on their doorstep. And when they discover the Faraway Tree . . . So when I began reading The Enchanted Wood, all I had read was its title. Yep, you got me right. I hadn't even read the blurb. I mean, I had thought of reading it but then I thought, eh, it's an Enid Blyton book. I'll love it either way. So I didn't read it and jumped into it without a single thought in my mind. And guess what? I was not disappointed despite that!

That is not the only change. When Blyton wrote The Enchanted Wood (1939), The Magic Faraway Tree (1943) and The Folk of the Faraway Tree (1946), she allowed her young characters to roam free. Entire passages of the original have been rewritten to remove references to fighting. For instance, when the tree is taken over by Goblins in The Enchanted Wood, the Goblins were originally fought off, with descriptions of Mr. Watzisname 'pummelling them as if he were beating carpets' and the Saucepan Man throwing his saucepans at them. These have been replaced with cursory references to 'chasing'. A truly magical book that I have read way more than just this one time. I am pretty sure I read it multiple times a year from the first time I got my copy. Anytime I want to escape and just be free, this book is one of my go to books. The characters are so real to me even in all their fantasticness. It never bothers me that their mother doesn't question why Moon-Face looks the way he does or how a squirrel can talk. It never seemed strange that she didn't notice they would sneak out or that they spent most of their time up an enchanted tree. I experienced every land they went to as if I was there with them. Sometimes we all just need a little bit of magic and this book always has a way of giving me what I need. Another repeated (again and again and again and again) 'gag' is where the Old Saucepan Man miss-hears every second thing said to him. "Can I have that?" "A rat you say? Where? I don't see a rat!" And on it goes. How we ... laughed. Once there were two children called Robin and Joy." This is how the fourth of the Faraway Tree series begins in Sunny Stories of July 23rd, 1948. It was in picture-strip form and there were four panels per issue. Due to the popularity of the previous Faraway Tree tales it was fairly obvious that Up the Faraway Tree might also be welcomed as a dedicated book and this took place in 1951. Because of the format the book might not be classed on par with the first three Faraway Tree volumes but that's purely a matter of how you see it. Robin and Joy initially distance the theme by a factor of one and viewed as a whole it might even be considered as a story within a story. The bonus is that the reader is inundated with a host of the lovely Dorothy Wheeler pictures and who could complain about that?

It will keep the original, magical inhabitants of the Faraway Tree, including Moon-Face, Silky the Fairy and the Saucepan Man. The second thing to note is that if you read this book as a child then all four children in the modern edition will have changed their names! Dame Slap, who runs a school for bad pixies which, in some of the adventures, the friends accidentally land in. Her name has been updated in later revisions of the book to Dame Snap. I have not verified and compare today's version with the original, but, apparently, cancel culture has got a hold of this book. The author has been labeled a sexist, homophobe and racist and many changes have been made to her book. The names of the characters have been changed from Fanny to Franny, and Dame Slap to Dame Snap, who doesn’t go around slapping the naughty pixies and fairies in the school of discipline for all their wrongs on one of the fantasy lands that Jo, Bessie, Fanny and their forest friends were trapped in for a little while.But when Moon-Face expresses a Blyton-esque sentiment about girls being required to help with domestic tasks, while boys do something more exciting, he is immediately educated on the subject of gender equality. I have other issues with the Faraway Tree, not least the Saucepan Man. He wasn’t my favourite character in the books as a child (that honour went to Moon-Face, because he had the slippery-slip slide in his house), but I liked him. Reading the books aloud, as an adult, I have been startled to find just how creepy he is. He’s not magical, like some of the characters; he’s just a man who drapes himself, for no discernible reason, in pots and pans. And hangs out with a group of kids.