Third Year at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton
8/10
Of course, one can't judge books from one's childhood by reading them today.
I think I should probably give this book 10/10, but, reading it as an adult I can see flaws that I couldn't see as a youngster. The characters are a bit flimsy. They have no depth or subtlety. But Enid Blyton did manage to capture some of the basic troubles and tensions and conflicts and sources of joy, pleasure and comfort that young girls had / have.
In this book we follow our old familiar middle-class friends, Darrell, Gwendoline, Alicia and Sally as they return to school feeling older and wiser. They are joined by a couple of new girls: Zerelda (who is American and glamorous and wants to be a movie actor) and Bill (who brings her horse to school and is obsessed with it).
There are tricks on teachers, jokes, difficulties in friendships and uppity young women are put in their place. Zerelda is made unglamorous and found to be much nicer when she conforms to British boarding school norms. Bill's horse becomes ill and there is a big adventure which ends up with someone n the sanitorium.
It has always puzzled me how a working-class girl from a northern industrial town could ever make sense of, or identify with Malory Towers (I read them all avidly, and acted them out with my Bunty cut-out dolls) which was, essentially, a posh public boarding school for girls. But I realise that Enid Blyton must have captured some of the key essences of what it was to be a schoolgirl trying to negotiate your way through relationships and school-work. Maybe my school wasn't that different from Mallory Towers?
8/10
Of course, one can't judge books from one's childhood by reading them today.
I think I should probably give this book 10/10, but, reading it as an adult I can see flaws that I couldn't see as a youngster. The characters are a bit flimsy. They have no depth or subtlety. But Enid Blyton did manage to capture some of the basic troubles and tensions and conflicts and sources of joy, pleasure and comfort that young girls had / have.
In this book we follow our old familiar middle-class friends, Darrell, Gwendoline, Alicia and Sally as they return to school feeling older and wiser. They are joined by a couple of new girls: Zerelda (who is American and glamorous and wants to be a movie actor) and Bill (who brings her horse to school and is obsessed with it).
There are tricks on teachers, jokes, difficulties in friendships and uppity young women are put in their place. Zerelda is made unglamorous and found to be much nicer when she conforms to British boarding school norms. Bill's horse becomes ill and there is a big adventure which ends up with someone n the sanitorium.
It has always puzzled me how a working-class girl from a northern industrial town could ever make sense of, or identify with Malory Towers (I read them all avidly, and acted them out with my Bunty cut-out dolls) which was, essentially, a posh public boarding school for girls. But I realise that Enid Blyton must have captured some of the key essences of what it was to be a schoolgirl trying to negotiate your way through relationships and school-work. Maybe my school wasn't that different from Mallory Towers?
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