Customer Reviews
Good book about a fascinating figure - By: Isafish, 17 Nov 2008 
I grew up on a (literary) diet of Enid Blyton's books: first the Faraway Tree & later the Famous Five. I loved them all & it wasn't until i reached my teens that i became aware she was a controversial figure, accused of being a reactionary who dumbed down children's vocabularies.
This biography shows what a remarkable individual Enid Blyton actually was: a self-made womanin an age when women were still expected to just marry & procreate, a vivid & compulsive - yet also repetitive - writer, a keen educator of children who was however distant to her own, a universal mother figure whoin many ways remained a perpetual child. Finally we reach the final pages of the book & her harrowing descent into dementia endingin her death.
Curiously, my overall feeling after finishing the biography was vindication: because as flawed & limited as Enid Blyton may have been, she was also a true originalin her own way.
Somehow I wanted more - By: J. H. Turner, 25 Jan 2008 
I have always found Enid Blyton a facinating character, but somehow this book failed to give me the insight that I expected. The book is a good read but, like Enid you never get under the skin. Perhaps I am being unfair as I wanted to understand her inspiration, this is touched on but never fully explored, also documentary evidence, ex-pupils, ex-employees, publishers & family do not seem to have been interviewed. I know Enid Blyton was a very private person & this book just confirmed that to me.
