Enter the enchanting world (sans political correctness..)

In Nov 2020,  Anushka decided to move from picture books and had a growing interest in more elaborately set characters and adventure stories. 

We attribute this to the influence of her 9-year old cousin. In the months to come the kids (3 cousins and a neighbor who had by now become a gang of sorts in our apartment during the pandemic-filled days) took to creating a secret seven(four?) club and imagining dramatic scenes where they rescue each other. 

After much time spent exploring, it was decided to go with a familiar book. We borrowed the first book of The Faraway Series. Started on the journey to introduce her to the world created by Enid Blyton. The nostalgia that the book brought me was also an added incentive to start reading the series to her. I remembered what fun it was to read these books(Wishing chair, Famous Five, ..) as a kid, having begged parents to buy, and then borrowing a lot more from a local library and from the school library where we scrounged for Blyton's Malory Towers, St.Clare's and the lot. At the same time, I also remembered having tried to read them again as a teenager one summer holiday and having quit early on as I had lost interest and couldn't relate. So, while apprehensive about how much association the current generation of kids will have with these strongly English settings and situations -  I remembered having lapped the Blyton books as a kid in the 90s and wanted to re-read them for myself as much as it was to make the daughter fall in love with the world of books.

By now, she had started reading the picture books on her own. Levels 1-3 in the scholastic series had been conquered very well with little help from us. Getting her to develop her reading skills was also a goal. And thankfully Enid Blyton's faraway tree was really perfect in getting this started. 

We laughed and wondered and pondered and discussed. The characters, the adventures, and the lands we wanted to visit became a constant stream of conversation at home. Her father would also read the books to her and on days we both couldn't read to her - Anushka started reading on her own and we would catch up by asking her to tell us the story. We marveled at the pop-cakes and google buns, giggled at the idea of toffee shocks, and dreamt of the wonderful treats they had in the different lands they visited.

When we visited my parents in December 2020, I dug out the old copy of my faraway collection and recollected that the names I was familiar with were not Joe, Beth, and Frannie, but Jo, Bessie, and Fanny! In the re-published versions post 90s, Dick had become Rick.. Dame Slap has been re-christened to Dame Snap and as the name goes, she only yells at the naughty fairies and pixies. (I was now reading out to the three kids - nephew and niece joined these reading sessions. The three were such rapt listeners. Giggles erupted through the house and their grandmom was not allowed to read it out to them, as the aunt was better at it! A proud moment indeed.. ;) ) I had to continuously remember and use the names as my daughter now imagined them to be. Did it make any difference to her when I kept mixing up the old and the new names? Absolutely not. 

Enid Blyton has been termed a racist and a sexist. But, didn't most of the authors from that era and culture have similar ideas about these topics, I wonder. How do you weigh her personality against the wonderful work of 700-odd books and 600 million copies that have been sold for over 50-years as best-sellers across the globe? Aren't we imposing the current culture and mindset of inclusivity on a person who grew up in a world where colonizing other nations was a trend? Born in 1897, I would assume Blyton was surrounded by the idea of victorian sensibilities and moralities. The early 1900s was the time when different social changes were being discussed and introduced in Britain. But, these justifications are quite unnecessary. 

The Chronicles of Narnia are supposed to be racist and misogynist. Pippi, created by Astrid Lindgred, lies about her experience in Egypt, the farthest India, and jungles of Borneo, and comes across as a xenophobe. Peter Pan, The Secret Garden, and a surprising number of classic children's books again have a racist undertone and in some cases comments that make you cringe when reading out loud to your kids. Should I then not introduce my daughter to C.S.Lewis, or Roald Dahl or Lewis Caroll, or for that matter Grimm's fairy tales? What I realize as I read these books out loud to the rapt six-year-old is that we are introducing adult biases and perspectives that don't have any relevance to kids. While we tend to tone it down and explain them in a politically correct way, the kids in their own sweet way tend to ignore little nuances which seem glaring to us. They only absorb in the fun and awe that these books are meant to create. I would think it would be a shame to not introduce kids to these wonderful worlds. 

It is just glaringly obvious that Enid Blyton wrote these books at a different age and time. We should not be expecting our sensibilities to get reflected in these books. As I dig more, I am discovering that there are more recent children's book authors who cover the space of inclusivity very well. 

If given a chance, I would only make this one appeal to the publishers of children's books out there is - please, oh please! don't try to sanitize these books. Let them be read as they were intended to be by the authors with all their biases. Force fitting political relevance only ends with the narrative being affected. There is no need to cloak the mistakes and mollycoddle these young readers. Let them grow up with these perspectives, identify the differences, and make their choices. Case in point: The failed attempt by Hachette in 2010 to censor Famous Five.