More About Books

Gert has been posting about old music and books, lately. She was apparently a big Noel Streatfeild fan, as was I. Theatre Shoes, Ballet Shoes, and When the Sirens Wailed were three of my favorite books as a child.

But nothing compared to my love for Enid Blyton, and particularly her boarding school stories. I believe my first Blyton school story was "The Naughtiest Girl in the School," the story of a spoiled little rich girl who was sent away to Whyteleafe, a progressive co-ed boarding school for youngsters (I don't think she was more than 8 or 9) where she was taken down a notch or three by her peers.

The most interesting part of school life at Whyteleafe was that the whole school was more or less governed by a semi-communist system run by the children themselves. Any money a child brought to school or received as a gift was freely deposited in a communal bank and then doled back out as pocket money; all punishments except the most severe were voted on by the community; and the children spent their free time working in the gardens to raise vegetables for the school or taking care of school animals. In the course of the three "Naughtiest Girl" books, Elizabeth learned to be a responsible, rule-abiding member of the Whyteleafe community (although she certainly had her high-spirited moments, even to the end).

Oh, you can take a quiz about The Naughtiest Girl Again! I scored 80%, despite not having read the books in at least twenty years!

(And OMG! How stoked am I that there is a real Whyteleafe School? Check out their lunch menu from last July -- yummy tuna fish flan! And you can even buy T-shirts! Hee. That is so fabulous. I think I want some of those verruca socks for the swimming pool...)

Enid Blyton also wrote my favorite school books, the Malory Towers books. Here's an enjoyable review of these books that probably does a better job of laying out the basics than I would. I loved these stories of girls living together away from home. I'm not sure what was so appealing about that -- I'm positive I would have hated boarding school if I'd ever been sent there myself -- but clearly, the idea of being in a big group of girls without parents around is is a recurring theme in the imagination of many little girls. I first read these books around the age of seven or so, I think, a little later than the Naughtiest Girl books, and I've reread them many, many times since then.

You can take a quiz to find out which Malory Towers character you are. Unsurprisingly, I was Sally.

For some reason I never read the St. Clare's books, also by Enid Blyton. I finally bought them all a couple of years ago when we went on vacation to England, and read them for the first time then. I enjoyed them, but I think I should have read them first as a child, for full engagement of my imagination.

I do think boarding school, with its justice and discipline being dished out by peers (officially or unofficially) is a compelling idea for many children. After all, the boarding school setting is integral to Harry Potter, surely the most popular children's books of the current day.

Bibliography of Blyton's school books:

Naughtiest Girl
1. The Naughtiest Girl in the School (1940)
2. The Naughtiest Girl Again (1942)
3. The Naughtiest Girl is a Monitor (1945)

St Clare's
1. The Twins at St Clare's (1941)
2. The O'Sullivan Twins (1942)
3. Summer Term at St Clare's (1943)
4. The Second form at St Clare's (1944)
5. Claudine At St. Clare's (1947)
6. Fifth Formers at St Clare's (1945)

Malory Towers
1. First Term at Malory Towers (1946)
2. The Second Form at Malory Towers (1947)
3. Third Year at Malory Towers (1948)
4. The Upper Fourth at Malory Towers (1949)
5. In the Fifth at Malory Towers (1950)
6. Last Term at Malory Towers (1951)

and

The House at the Corner (1947) - included because the two youngest children (twins) want to go off to school at Whyteleafe, and finally are allowed to at the end of the book