Enid Blyton's SECRET SEVEN series

Update on June 18, 2021: Blyton's books are in the news because a site called "English Heritage" notes that people have, in the past, noted racism in her books. I can't figure out why this is in the news, now, but it seems to be related to Black Lives Matter. When I get more information, I'll be back to add it.  Back in 2015, I did a brief post on Blyton's "Red Indians." Today I am adding excerpts from Blyton's The Boy Next Door and this interior illustration from a 1951 reprint of the book (image found on the Enid Blyton website). Obviously, the illustration and the text are very stereotypical. 

Page 16:  When Betty, Robin, and Lucy hear that there's a boy next door, they peer over the fence into the yard to see if they can see him. They see a woman sleeping in a chair and then see the someone (the boy) creeping out of the hedge to the woman. Then, 

The Red Indian suddenly rose to his feet, gave an ear-splitting yell, ran round and round the chair in a very fierce manner, and then disappeared into the hedge again. The woman woke and sat up angrily.

Page 19-20: The three children plan to go next door and scare the boy next door. Lucy asks if Robin has a "Red Indian suit" that she can use. Robin tells her she can use her old one because she got a new one at Christmas. Then, she says 

"Really, you should be a Red Indian squaw, and not wear a proper brave's head-dress with heaps of feathers--but it won't matter for once."

Page 23: The children, wearing their Red Indian suits, lay on their tummies and wriggle along "as Red Indians do." Robin and Betty have played at this for years and frown at Lucy when she makes a stick crack under her:

"Sh!" whispered Robin. "Don't you know that Red Indians never make a sound, silly?"

Page 25-26: Kit (the boy next door) surprises them and ties them up, one by one, to trees:

"Now for a war dance!" he said, "and then maybe I'll try shooting a few arrows at you!" 

He proceeds to yell and whoop, angry that they're tied up but also admiring Kit because "he really did seem exactly like a real Red Indian."

Original post:

Enid Blyton's SECRET SEVEN series

posted on June 18, 2015

Enid Blyton popped up in my news media feed this morning because of an exhibit about her and her work that is on national tour in the UK. Somewhere in my reading about children's literature, I'd read something about her work being controversial. I rummaged around a bit and hit on the golliwogs in her stories. I poked around a bit more and found that she has characters who play Indian ("Red Indian" as it is called in the UK) in the Secret Seven series.

According to The Telegraph, the images of golliwogs and references to them have been "doctored" in books in which they appear. I doubt if the same is true for the playing Indian parts of her books. I ordered The Boy Next Door and will see if any changes have been made. Course, I won't know till it arrives just which edition I'll get!

For now, check out these three illustrations (credit for these images is to the Enid Blyton Society website).

Here's the cover of the 1944 edition. Illustrations for it are by A. E. Bestall:

From what I've gleaned about The Boy Next Door, Blyton's characters peer over the fence and see the kid next door dancing like a Red Indian. Since they play Red Indian, too, they decide to put on their Red Indian costumes and sneak up on that neighbor kid and scare him. So... here they are, sneaking up on him:

But something goes wrong:

When the book arrives, I'll share what I read. Old books, yes, but Blyton is a key figure in children's literature. As such, her work remains influential. In the meantime, head over to the page about this book. There's a lot more illustrations there, and some comments about the story, too. No mention, however, of the problems in a play Indian theme.