Enid Blyton versus JK Rowling
The Daily Telegraph compares Enid Blyton to JK Rowling - the two powerhouses of children’s literature.
Enid Blyton wrote nearly 800 books over a 40-year career, many of them quite slim, as well as close to 5,000 short stories. She sold 200 million books in her lifetime, with few translations until the 1960s and 1970s, and has sold some 400 million altogether. About half of her titles are still in print, and they still sell 11 million copies a year, including a million for the Famous Five series and three million Noddy books.
July 5th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
I feel slightly insulted that Enid Blyton’s compared to J.K.Rowling. To me, Enid was akin to the alphabet- she introduced literature to me.
Perhaps Hogwarts is where the newer generation will grow up, but Harry’s world feels to much like pop music to me. I feel it is a loss.
July 14th, 2007 at 1:29 am
Both are great writers. I grew up with Blyton’s books
(The Famous Five, etc).The idea Blyton has in such as the sinking ship with the treasure inside in the Treausre Island or how interesting the character such as george has is as magical as Harry Potter and his magic. I must admit that JK Rowling has wonderful and brilliant ideas as well as Blyton. With her ideas in writing Blyton won readers more than other writers in her time. JK Rowling ‘defeats’ others at present time. We can’t compare both cause they live in different time. But if they both lived in the same time and in the same world background, it’s difficult to tell who would win. A few days ago, I asked some young teenagers whether they knew ‘The Famous Five’. I was surprised that they not only know the famous five but also some other Blyton books. The young generation (I am a teacher and I often hear the students talk about Harry Potter)have a lot of talks about the characters JK Rowling has in her books. They want to be smart like Hermoine and how they feel that Harry’s uncle and aunt are not fair to Harry. And the most important thing is they learn to hate evil character like voldermort. Contrast to the narrow minded people who say that Jk Rowling teaches magic, the children understand very clearly that the magic in the story is only part of the story. They even learn to have good friendship like Harry, Ron and Hermoine.And they learn that Draco Malfroy is not a good boy. Thanks to Blyton and Rowling who entertain us with wonderful magic in our mind and heart.