Enid Blyton's Secret Seven are making a comeback ...

From Irish Independent:

"Nostalgia is a brilliant marketing tool," observes Levis. "The great thing about those books is that they really highlight the good points of the original books and remind adults why they might have been so lovely to read as a kid. That can only be a good thing."

It's probably been a while since you've read about swotters, jolly japes, peculiar fellows, Housemistresses and lashings of ginger beer. Yet a new book looks set to breathe life into a decades-old series.

Those of a certain age will no doubt recall Enid Blyton's fictional group of child detectives, The Secret Seven. The first book was originally printed back in 1949 and the 15th title was released in 1963.

Yet the franchise has been revived by award-winning writer Pamela Butchart with a new novel, The Secret Seven Mystery of the Skull. Here, and in time-honoured tradition, the seven friends set off on an investigation without adult supervision.

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@ Irish Independent

@ Enid Blyton Society

Why are children’s authors eccentric?

From BBC - Culture:

As new parents and anyone who’s ever gone rummaging through their old childhood libraries quickly realises, much of the best literature for kids is bonkers. It all makes divine sense when you’re four or five or 10, but return as an adult to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland or The Cat in the Hat, and what’s striking is that so much sublime whimsy and exuberant creativity could have been conjured up by our fellow grownups.

Then again, there’s a theory that children’s authors – the best of them, at any rate – never really grow up. Lewis Carroll famously – notoriously from today’s perspective – preferred playing games with children to adult conversation. Kenneth Grahame amassed a vast collection of toys – in his 20s. And Dodie Smith, a fascinating writer best known today for her children’s novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians, used to say she never felt quite grown up. (At under five feet tall and with a high-pitched, perpetually girlish voice, she perhaps had more excuse than most.)

read more here @ BBC - Culture

• Kay Thompson, Eloise
• Theodor Geisel, aka Dr Seuss,
• EB White, Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web
• Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
• Margaret Wise Brown, The Runaway Bunny and Goodnight Moon
• Dodie Smith, The Hundred & One Dalmatians