Cynthia had wonderful find a few months ago while going through a library's book sale; a hard-cover, illustrated edition of The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton. Both Cynthia and I had grown up on Enid Blyton books, so we decided that with Jojo starting to read herself, she might like to listen some of our classic favourites.
And it was a hit! :-) Jojo simply loved it, and she called it "a book like a treasure chest full of good ideas". After we'd finished "The Enchanted Wood" over several weeks of bedtime readings, I was determined to find the other two books in the trilogy series. So off I went to Borders, and imagine my shock when I discovered that the Faraway Tree series had undergone a bunch of "updates" in the modern reprint to keep it from being politically incorrect and more accessible in the US. The girl Fanny was now named Frannie, and one of the boys in Book 2, Dick, was now named Rick! "Pop Biscuits" were now "Pop Cakes" because apparently in the US, no one knows what a biscuit is.
Appalled, I refused to purchase the Americanized version of the books, so I went through eBay and managed to snipe a collector's edition of the entire trilogy in a single book. Now, it's one of our prized possessions in Jojo's book shelf. Thank God for eBay!
What a wonderful (bedtime) story, KK! I don't know the series, but I do know the author from reading the The Famous Five books when I was young. I absolutely support your decision in not buying that PC book! I'm glad you were able to find an original one on the internet, certainly something that wouldn't have been possible when we were reading her books for the first time ;-)
ReplyDeleteYah...the beauty of ebay.
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