I LOVE this book!

Looking for a book to read to your children or read yourself or to explore faraway lands or to take imagination to a new level? You must read this book/s...

Looking back at my ‘Intermediate years’ as we would call grade 7 and 8 in New Zealand, my form teacher in grade 7 would read us stories straight after our lunch break. I particularly looked forward to this 20-to-30-minute period of listening to my teacher reading stories from a variety of books of different genres. However, this specific children’s book left a huge impression on me, and I sought out to buy this book at a Bookfest about 2 years ago. I have re-read this book at least 7 times borrowing from multiple libraries until I obtained my very own copy. Although I am in my mid-20s, I still love the simplicity, creativity, and imaginative nature of children’s books. Therefore, a lot of the books I own are children’s books which I will introduce in my future blogs.

The book which gives me a feeling of nostalgia every time I read it is the “The Magic Faraway Tree Collection” by Enid Blyton. This collection consists of 3 separate books delving into the lives of 3 siblings, Joe, Frannie, and Beth and their adventures into faraway lands on top of the magic faraway tree located in an enchanted wood near their little cottage. These collections are written in such a beautiful way that I am also going into the various lands at the top of this magic tree such as into the ‘land of dreams’ or the ‘land of secrets’ or the ‘land of goodies’ along with the siblings and the folk of the tree.

While my teacher read this book to us in school, I would be able to picture the siblings and the folk of the faraway tree including Moon-face, Silky the fairy, Saucepan Man, Mr Watzisname, and more. The names of these characters itself displays the creative and easily imaginative nature of these books. The second the teacher picked up this book to read to us, time would simply run as if it had an appointment to get to. I would sit there visualizing the story while dreading for the 20–30-minute time to finish and for the teacher to say, “That’s it for today, let's start maths…” A couple of times we were able to convince the teacher to read an extra chapter or 2 because we were that invested in the book.

If I had the chance to actually go into this book which happens in a lot of reincarnation fantasy Mangas, the first thing which I would do is to make toffee to give to Moon-face whose house is at the top of this huge magical tree which grows fruits, nuts, snacks, and more, irrespective of the time and day, to use his slippery-slip to slide all the way down to the bottom.

Random fact – I always thought this author's name was ‘Guid Blyton’ until very recently. If you look at her name on the books she wrote, the “E” of her name is written connected to the u and to me it always looked like a “G”. Maybe this is just a me thing?

Written with sincerity,

Me.