Enid Blyton books have been translated into over 90 languages and are read the world over by children of all ages. Her incredibly prodigious output of 800 books during her career are almost exclusively aimed at various prevalent ideas amongst the young, ranging from pre-school toy stories to fantasies about early childhood independence from adults.
Perhaps the recurring themes of solving mysteries, small exclusive children's groups and adventure without grow ups are the ingredients which have made her work so popular with children of diverse ages. After Enid Blyton 's literary success with short stories and her first books, she applied to have her world serialized on BBC radio, but was continuously rejected due to the generally poor quailty of her writing.
However, this perceived lack of great literary style did not stop thousands of kids loving her characters and their adventures. Enid Blyton is probably best know for three main series and characters - Noddy, a wooden boy living in Toytown, The Famous Five and the The Secret Seven ...
Noddy was firmly aimed at pre-school age kids and followed the adventures of a runaway boy carved from wood. His friend Big Ears helps him to settle into Toytown, where he rides around in a little red and yellow car, and solves mysteries in the small community. Although not the writer's main focus, Noddy has become by far the most successful creation, particularly after it was launched on BBC television in 1956. It was an instant success with children between the ages of two to six years, and continued this way into the 70s. The story-board version of the Noddy adventures have helped many small children read their first letters and words.
The books she wrote for older children often centered around the formation of a secret group, or club that was strictly for children only - definitely no adults! They would meet in a secret club house, often in a tree house, or some other out of the way place in the woods. Local mysteries that had the village's bumbling police force completely baffled were life's blood to them, as they took great delight in being seperate from grown ups, and also showing how much brighter they were. In the Famous Five, there were actually four children and a dog.
In The Secret Seven series, the children regularly had adventures and the young detectives also solved local mysteries that eluded the local police. The idea of independent kids having secret meetings and adventures, which also brought them into contact with minor criminals struck an immediate chord with children pre-teens and early teens alike. Enid Blyton used to write bedside notes about here own childhood fantasies, and simply expanded these into the stories that ensured her place as one the most successful children's authors ever.
