The characters are quite static and predictable, and most chapters have their own narrative arc and finished fully resolved—making it the perfect bedtime story, and suitable to reading over a long period of time. but without this author my childhood would have been a sad and lonely place, from her stories for young children the wishing chair and come to the circus, to the fabulous famous five, St. I was hoping for more substance in this book and it explains why I never remembered anything that happened. The magic lands that visit the top of the Faraway Tree are on thin ice, because obviously there is a limit to what the imagination can do when one is ageing and having experimented with all permutations of storytelling.

The third book is, like the second, simply a collection of tree-related episodes, each fairly self-contained. Even so, they explore a host of lands, including Nursery Rhyme Land, the land of Dame Slap, and climb up the Ladder That Has No Top, but then disaster strikes: The Faraway Tree is dying – its leaves curling up and no fruit growing on its branches. The plot follows two new children, Robin and Joy, who have read The Enchanted Wood and want to join in the adventures.When at home Bessie and Fanny have to do 'female' chores with their Mother like sewing and Jo has to do 'male' chores with their Father like working the garden. This edition was printed in the early nineties and does still contain elements which I think have been removed now. This marriage ended in divorce, and Blyton remarried in 1943, to surgeon Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters.

Jo, Bessie and Fanny come to live at the edge of the Enchanted Wood where the trees, "a darker green than usual," whisper their secrets: "Wisha-wisha-wisha. Enid Blyton inspired me to read as a young child and to this day I suspect is the reason I love to read. But we always end on a nice note with a nice land to visit and this time it's the Land of Treats after the gang saves the Faraway Tree from near death. When Moonface invites them all to tea in the Enchanted Wood, Connie is excited despite her disbelief that such a place could ever exist. When Joe, Beth and Frannie move to a new home, they discover an Enchanted Wood just outside their doorstep.The characters themselves didn’t change, as it retained its charm, with it only going through a minor cosmetic change. Walking into the wood they come across an enormous tree with branches that seem to stretch into the clouds, as it soon transpires that this is, in actual fact, the Faraway Tree. Connie arrives and her hosts find that she knows Dick who featured in the previous book and he's told her about his experiences when climbing the Faraway Tree. Taking a journey into a whole new world of magic and make-believe, it’s set around the concept of imagination.

I had spent kindergarten a scared, confused child, who couldn't focus on the words on the board in front of me. Connie is the type of girl who adds a lot of material to the substance of the book and very shortly she comes to grief in an accident caused by her unassailable desire to find out how things tick. When I read that Enid Blyton was one the favorite childhood authors of the likes of Neil Gaiman and Stieg Larsson, and when a British exchange student at my daughter's college exclaimed in surprise when she heard that her American friends had never heard of Enid Blyton, my curiosity was aroused. I primarily utilize Charlotte Mason's philosophies and I am excited to see some resources for some of our favorite books, which is why I joined.I can still clearly see the picture of the discomfited-looking child holding the cone, with a fish's tail poking out of the scoop of ice-cream. Still, it meant we had some interesting conversations with my 4 yr old boy about gender roles and the idiocy of perpetuating the same. Almost working into the narrative as a character in of itself it comes to life, as its fully realized by Blyton. Together they climb through the cloud at the top of the Faraway Tree and visit the wonderful places there, the Land of Secrets and the Land of Treats - and Connie learns to behave herself! But they don't let her stop them having fun with their tree-friends, Silky, Moon-Face and the Saucepan Man.