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A review by katymaryreads
The Island of Adventure by Enid Blyton
3.0
Things were different in the past.
The casual racism, ongoing sexism (with the note of gallantry that makes teen boys protect their sisters and not hit them unless they're really annoying) and the fact that everyone smoked were expected. I remembered most of that from my youthful reading of this series, which I loved (far more than the Famous Five). 12-year-old me was rather in love with Jack, and totally in awe of the heroic coming-in-when-an-adult-is-strictly-necessary Bill.
As a child, I was wildly indignant at the sexism that never let Blyton's female characters have such an exciting time as their brothers. The racism never occurred to me back then. (I'm not sure I knew any people of colour, certainly no black people, and i regarded them with suspicion partly as a result of that and partly as a by-product of the inherent racism that was just part of how many white people thought back then and that we didn't even realise was a thing.) The smoking is obviously not such a big deal; it was just what a lot of people did back then.
What never occurred to 12-year-old me was the appalling treatment of the orphaned Jack and Lucy Ann and the fatherless Philip and Dinah. passed casually from adult to adult, and fully aware that no one really wanted them.
Having said all that, and taking this as an of-its-time purely nostalgic read, nearly fifty years on, I really enjoyed it.
The casual racism, ongoing sexism (with the note of gallantry that makes teen boys protect their sisters and not hit them unless they're really annoying) and the fact that everyone smoked were expected. I remembered most of that from my youthful reading of this series, which I loved (far more than the Famous Five). 12-year-old me was rather in love with Jack, and totally in awe of the heroic coming-in-when-an-adult-is-strictly-necessary Bill.
As a child, I was wildly indignant at the sexism that never let Blyton's female characters have such an exciting time as their brothers. The racism never occurred to me back then. (I'm not sure I knew any people of colour, certainly no black people, and i regarded them with suspicion partly as a result of that and partly as a by-product of the inherent racism that was just part of how many white people thought back then and that we didn't even realise was a thing.) The smoking is obviously not such a big deal; it was just what a lot of people did back then.
What never occurred to 12-year-old me was the appalling treatment of the orphaned Jack and Lucy Ann and the fatherless Philip and Dinah. passed casually from adult to adult, and fully aware that no one really wanted them.
Having said all that, and taking this as an of-its-time purely nostalgic read, nearly fifty years on, I really enjoyed it.