Peter and Mollie arrive home from school where Chinky joins up with them and they're ready for more adventures. On their first visitation to a strange land they meet Chinky's cousin "Sleep-Alone." He's a rather anti-social type who just wishes to get away from everyone and everything so that he can have a decent sleep but, unfortunately, he's always disturbed no matter where he is and Peter, Mollie and Chinky play their part in his interrupted life. The adventure moves on and a problem arises when their wonderful chair is stolen so naturally there's an all-out hunt for it and this is where they become involved with Mr. Spells — an Enchanter. After a rather unpleasant introduction they eventually make friends with him and later on in the book Mollie and Peter seem able to visit Mr. Spells whenever they like which is a little unusual because when entering magical places there's generally a need to be accompanied by one of the in-folk such as a fairy or pixie. The first book, Adventures of the Wishing-Chair, has the distinction of being Enid Blyton's first full-length novel — although it is episodic in nature. A TV series was made in 1998 as part of Enid Blytons Enchanted Lands. I don't know how many times I read this book as a child but I loved it! I was forever trying to drag chairs out into the garden to use as my wishing chair, which enraged my mum on a daily basis one summer! I grew up on Enid Blyton books but I don't remember too much about this series other than the characters, rich kids Mollie and Peter who have their own playroom at the bottom of the garden, a houseproud mother and a servant called Jane. One day they visit an antique shop to buy a present for Mother and get involved in a strange adventure where they steal a flying Wishing Chair from the wizard shop owner and take it home. Each time the chair grows wings, it is time for a new adventure, and as a kid I just loved the different places and people that they met on their travels. Mollie and Peter, searching for a birthday present for their mother, find a mysterious antiques shop which appears to be run by fairy folk. There, they find a magic Wishing-Chair with the power to grow wings and fly. After the chair rescues them from the shop, and gets them home, they decide to keep the chair in their playroom. On their first adventure, they rescue a pixie called Chinky (renamed to Binky in revised editions and Jigs in the TV series) [1] from a giant. The pixie comes to live in their playroom, and the remainder of the book concerns the adventures of the children, as the chair takes them, and Chinky (later named Binky) to various magical places. I think that Adventures of the Wishing-Chair is an exceptionally good item to produce when a child wishes to read his or her very first book however if the young person is of a very nervous disposition and prone to nightmares then it might be wise to think about chapters such as those where the children enter a witch's garden at the dead of night or when they are captured in a castle belonging to an outlandish creature.

Blyton was a prolific author of children's books, who penned an estimated 800 books over about 40 years. Her stories were often either children's adventure and mystery stories, or fantasies involving magic. Notable series include: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, The Five Find-Outers, Noddy, The Wishing Chair, Mallory Towers, and St. Clare's. Mollie and Peter have saved some money and plan to go to buy their mother a birthday present and as they say ........ Holy-moly... they discover a chair or vice versa, which can fly... The book version of a straight to dvd disney film. As mentally stimulating as an 'Adam Sandler' movie. Narrative horse-tranquilizer. Whenever you start to enjoy it you can actually feel a few more braincells commit hari-kari. Everytime someone praises this book a fairy dies...wait..wait.. i'm sure i've got a few more ;)... Also good writers like good politicians tend to be hampered by logic and reason. A bad writer like a popular politician feels no need for there to be any rules and can throw whatever random nonsense they like into the plot. Sometimes I do wish I had access to a wishing chair which could whip up some adventures in a whiff.... Ha Ha...

Tonies Content-Tonie – Enid Blyton – The Wishing Chair

This appears to have been written earlier than the Faraway Tree series and Blyton's style in this book seems to be quite different as well. Where the Faraway Tree had stories that covered multiple chapters the Wishing Chair has about one adventure per chapter with the exception of two, one takes up two chapters and the grand finale takes up three. Also, where the adult world occasionally intruded into the world of the Faraway Tree, in that the fairies would come and visit the children in their home, this does not happen in the world of the Wishing Chair. A couple of the adventures do involve the adult world intruding, but they only involved an incident when the Wishing Chair was going to be sold, where it was then moved into the house, and the other one involved a missing ring. However, pretty much most of the adventures occur in the play room, and the faerie realm, which appears to be an extension of the play room.

This is actually one of the less compelling books in Blytons fantasy land sagas because there is a greater focus on the dumb antagonists than in the worldbuilding. But it still features gems like the civilized mice and the invisible paints and the land of dreams. Throughout the book they all have the desire to visit the Land of Goodness-Knows-Where for some reason or another but despite many attempts they never actually get there. Something I noticed in the last book of The Faraway Tree series, and particularly in this book, is that the father has vanished. There is no mention of a father in this particular story, only mother. While the Faraway Tree was written during and after the war, there is a good explanation as to why the father vanishes, however this is a pre-war book. Maybe the reason that there does not appear to be a father is because we are looking from the children's view point and most of their time is spent with their mother while father is off at work. However, the children are also clearly pre-school since not once are they mentioned going to school.The Wishing-Chair is a series of two novels by the English author Enid Blyton, and a third book published in 2000 compiled from Blyton's short stories. The three children's stories are as follows: Enid Blyton was the first all-text no-pictures author I ever read. Two decades worth of evolved tastes and increasing cynicism have washed away most of my delight, but I continue to retain a lot of fondness for her fantasy stories. Hilda McGavin is once again the talented illustrator. Her efforts seem a little different from the more defined pictures that decorate the first book. The children are a little older or bigger-looking of course but the illustrations overall seem a weeny bit less-detailed than in the previous volume. Not all that noticeable though.

According to the Index Translationum, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare. While visiting a giant's castle, Peter and Mollie rescue a pixie named Chinky. He comes to live in the playroom at the bottom of the children's garden, where they keep the wishing-chair, and he is able to alert them whenever the chair grows its wings and is ready to whisk them off on yet another fantastic adventure. Over the course of the books they travel to all kinds of weird and wonderful places — the Land of Dreams, the Village of Slipperies, Mister Grim's School for Bad Brownies, the Land of Goodies and many others, meeting characters like the Grabbit Gnomes, Witch Kirri-Kirri, the Snoogle, Mr. Spells and Winks the brownie. Enid Blyton used some of the same lands in her Faraway Tree series. Throughout childhood I had the recurring image of a wonderful Titbit Dish. Every time you lift the lid there is a titbit there — a sausage, a bar of chocolate, an orange or even an ice-cream. Like all children I could never get as many sweets and goodies that I required and I used to think about that little dish which Peter owned. What a wonderful possession it would be — then at the end of this book he gives it away to a naughty brownie. What a waste of such a desirable item! And admittedly it's not very scientific worldbuilding. It's not going to stand up to close scrutiny or examination and the rules are nonexistent but you try and tell me that Land of Dreams sequence wasn't a chaotic delight.Later copies of Adventures of the Wishing-Chair were abridged then in further editions some chapters were restored and some left out so if you want to read them all try searching for The Wishing Chair Collection or More Wishing-Chair Tales and add them to your reprints — although you may not end up with all the Hilda McGavin illustrations. Instead, they just pop the Wishing Chair Tonie on top of a Toniebox to join Mollie, Peter and a whole host of spellbinding creatures for some enchanting adventures. Whether they are curled up on a comfy sofa, snuggled down in bed or settled down in a car seat, The Wishing Chair will instantly transport them somewhere else entirely. Once again most of the action takes place between the playroom and Fairy Land, a land in which adults do not venture. It seems as if the playroom is the domain of the children, and the children do their best to spend as much time there as possible. It is a major difference from the Faraway Tree stories where mother knows what is going on, and even meets a number of the characters from the Enchanted Wood. While there is the ritual of jumping the ditch to get into the wood, it seems that the occupants of the wood can interact with the world of the adults. It is different here as the fairy world wants to remain hidden from the adult world. In this story though the discussion revolves around the Wishing Chair being taken to a museum and put on display.

The Wishing Chair is ready to whisk your little one off to magical lands, and they don’t need to be sitting down to fly away. Including a feature-length adaptation of Enid Blyton’s The Adventures of The Wishing Chair, this Tonie is perfect for long journeys and chapter-by-chapter listeningPeter and Mollie are great leads, and hopefully they return in the sequel. I may read some other books in the collection including the Faraway Tree series, however, I don't own too many. Even though the story is well paced and the subtle pictures offer a great image in your head, I feel this book is really a four star. I gave it five because of the powerful little thing, nostalgia! Enid Blyton one of the worlds most translated authors and probably the largest selling children's author of all time. It's just- there is something so wonderfully imaginative about all of the places and people that are there in these books? The strange lands and the ridiculously quirky characters are a constant source of entertainment simply because they are so very weird. I mean yes, of course the conflicts are simplistic and the antagonists are not too bright but that's not what I'm here for. I'm here for the worldbuilding. In her foreword, Enid Blyton comments on the hundreds of letters she received when the Wishing-Chair tales came to an end in the original Sunny Stories magazine which she edited and wrote. The children wanted more and they wished that all the tales could be put into one book and that's not surprising because magazines are often missed which means that serial-stories can become quite disjointed. This book will provide you a dose of healthy nostalgia and remind most fans about the joys of earlier generations and the books. Enid Blyton is a legend and a brilliant story writer.