Sunday, November 25, 2012

Reading and more on change of circumstances

Well the start of the week is among us and as you've no doubt read this week will like all my weeks from here on in will be different meaning I'll have to fill the extra time I have to be my little self up by myself which should prove most interesting.
Tomorrow, I'll be working for a few hours across the morning at my own pace talking with people and from that helping them out for the people I was employed by because it's a skill my health situation aside I'm actually rather good at.
I liked the people we get for the most part (you'll always get the odd one that's a bit awkward), finding our conversations rewarding apart from learning about other peoples circumstances. Anyway my leaving employment isn't and really shouldn't be seen by anyone as just more time for to be online for hours at a time just because someone may like a bit of company although it'll enable me to visit a few sites more often where I can have fun people who know me there and I love their company a lot. Their support during this period means a lot to me, personally.

One thing I will probably be doing more of is reading which for all my difficulties with it, is something I'm really enjoying right now and one site has an upcoming readathon I'll be able to take part in, sharing observations around the story as we all read together.

This week I've been reading the Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton which is about a group of children - Jo, Bessie and Fanny - who having moved to the Country, encounter a  most odd wood at the end of their garden - The Enchanted Wood where pixies, fairies and others live. Growing in this wood is the Fareway Tree which initially the children climb that leads to the top where you can enter lands, lands that change regularly where many an adventure is had often featuring Moon-Face who has a face just like the moon and Silkie who has hair just like silk.

Some of the lands are really magical like Nursery Rhyme Land or the Land of Presents, cautionary such as the Land of Do-as-you-please or a bit nasty like the Land of Tempers. Well, would you liked to be surrounded by people always in a bad temper?
My copies of The Fareaway Tree and the Folk of  the Faraway tree are copies I had from my chronological childhood being printed around 1971 and1972 but the first book of the series the Enchanted Wood is a newer copy from 1987, all just being decimalized but otherwise keeping the same text as earlier editions which isn't the case with the current ones with name changes for the three children, gollywogs being removed and any mentioning in passing of slaps or spanking as punishment removed.

Related to that and again from my original copies from the early 1970's I read Wishing Tree series (in the original series there but two books) which are fun to read. The plot is essentially that of two children, Peter and Molly who go to an antique shop to by their mother a present and come back with a chair that, when wishes are made has the magical ability to fly. They discover and make friends with a pixie called Chinky and have adventures flying in the Wishing Chair meeting also sorts of amazing and sometimes slightly scary characters.
As with Fareway Tree, these two books (Adventures of the Wishing Chair and the Wishing Chair Again) have been extensively 'revised' in their current editions to remove all the stuff so-called 'Politically Correct' people have issues with even mentioning.
Thankfully for those without copies, the Deans hardback Rewards series are easy to find used in at least acceptable condition being in print until at least 1990 where the heavy revisions came in.
Malory Towers revisited:
I got used the unbutchered text editions in the form of a W H Smith hardback Omibus edition of the first four novels and the separate Deans hardbook Rewards series ones from 1990 of the last two.
There are entire paragraphs missing from the current ones and the 'PC' alterations do effect the characters responses to some important storylines in the books. Rereading them, it all makes more sense.

2 comments:

  1. I haven't read those books, but I'm sure we all have our childhood favorites.

    I do wish they wouldn't remove content that some might find objectionable today. They're a product of another era, and trying to pretend things weren't different then doesn't help today's children.

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  2. Magic Faraway Tree - that brings back memories! I was also an avid fan of the Secret Seven and Famous Five, later graduating onto the "Adventure" series (Philip, Jack, Dinah, Lucy-Ann plus Kiki the parrot).

    On other matters, it's good that you're keeping a proverbial foot in the world of work; doing the aspects of the job you actually enjoyed rather than the aspects that neither you nor your body enjoyed (paperwork).

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