There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.
Elizabeth Lawrence
Which child can resist the temptation of an Enchanted Forest?? A forest which holds in its depths mysterious magical creatures and secrets beyond their wildest childish fantasies!!! And if the forest has the most ’enormousest tree in the whole wide world’ (my niece’s description) and has magic in every branch and leaf of it, who wouldn’t be tempted to climb up every day and enjoy each and every spell!!! Jo, Bessie and Fanny certainly couldn’t and their curiousity and childhood adventures , fuelled by Enid Blyton’s superb imagination, gave us one of the most terrific, magical and wonderful childhood stories.
Ssshhh....if you are really quiet, you can hear the trees in the enchanted wood go ’wisha wisha’. Don’t be afraid, move on towards the middle of the woods and ....behold!!! A tree on which grow all kinds of fruits and where each branch has a magical creature living on it....it is the Magical Faraway Tree!!! The Faraway tree holds in its topmost branches an exciting secret - a CLOUD!!! No, ofcourse not, not just any cloud, but one which always has some strange land on it - lands which are beyond what you can ever imagine, lands which are more than magical - they are every child’s secret dreams (and a few nightmares) into reality. Come, let Jo, Bessie and Fanny take us through their adventures UP THE FARAWAY TREE ----------
The folks of the Faraway Tree
Hey, be careful - do not look into the window of the house on the first branch of the tree...it is the house of the ANGRY PIXIE (errr....no, I did not keep him in mind!!) He hates it when people stare into his window and throws water on them!!! Bessie and Fanny are scared of him, but Jo loves to play pranks on him sometimes.
Shield your eyes as you reach the next door - as in this one stays the beautiful fairy - SILKY!! Her hair is golden, silky and long and she is lovely in both her appearance and heart - you would love to eat the ’POP’ biscuits and toffee ’shocks’ that she bakes. ’’ She is one of bestest friends’’ says sweet Bessie.
Hey hold on, what’s that noise?? Is it an aeroplane? Thunder? SNNNORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRE.....!!!!!!!!!!!! ’’relax’’ says Fanny, ’’ this is just Mr. Whatzizname. He is always sleeping with his mouth open’’, she giggles.
SPLASH...oops Dame Washalot’s soap sudded water has soaked you!! She is forever washing her clothes and throwing the dirty water down the Faraway Tree. tee hee, whatzizname and she have had quite a few tiffs!!!
The Saucepan Man with all his varied pots and pans tied around him is slightly deaf(well who wouldn’t be with the amount of noise the pans make) and it’s quite entertaining to talk to him. But let’s move on....
Now let us introduce you to our most favourite friend - MOONFACE. He is really nice and is always involved in our adventures. And one of our favourite part of this tree is the opening in the middle of his floor - the slippery slip!! Its a slide till the bottom of the tree and it’s lovely to just enjoy the slide after one of our adventures (lazybones that we are!!)
It’s great fun sliding down it...but hey, little later...let’s go see what the purple hole in the cloud holds for us today - which land will we find up there??
Lands up the Faraway Tree
Will it be topsy turvy land where even the people walk upside down?? The houses stand on their chimneys and the trees have their roots waving in the air!!!
Or would it be land of treats where you can get any kind of treat you want - amusement rides, goodies, circuses, icecreams..this is one of our favourites!!!
I would suggest we don’t venture into the roundabout land .It might make you dizzy to see everything going round and round!!! And never go into the land of dreams. You fall asleep withing moments and get all sorts of queer dreams....it’s very difficult to wake up and you might get stuck there!!
But we would definitely take you to the land of take what you want where you can take anything which you like!! Its full of so many interesting things and you can just pick up anything which you find interesting!!!
Bessie just loves the land of birthdays and land of nursery rhymes where she can meet all her favourite nursery characters!!!
Jo, the mischievous boy that he is is fascinated by land of spells and enchantments land
Fanny, who is always being bullied and scolded by her elder siblings can’t wait to go to land of do as you please !!!
Ofcourse there are many more lands, each having their own mysteries and secrets - a different adventure in every visit!!! (My cousins and I used to play games about thinking of lands which we would like to visit - fortunately, Blyton didn’t have the same wild imagination as my brother...the land of WWF!! eeeks!!! and my brother hit me when I wanted to play about ’land of teddybears’)
The books are extremely simple and are full of the fun, the adventures and the discoveries the three children make in their visits to the Faraway Tree. The Enchanted wood and its subsequent books in the series never failed to keep me engrossed when I was...ummm...a little younger.
Even now, I skim through the books for my favourite lands and they still make me grin, wonder and wish for those enchanted days of childhood when I could weave fantasies about finding such a tree and visiting newer lands.
A child can get lost (in love) with these books and its characters. A child can develop his or her imagination with the lands. A child ...wait a sec...any one can!!! I still love them!!!
A child can be encouraged to read with enid blyton’s books. But with this one, a child can learn to love reading them.
I must have reread mine a million times!!! my mother must have read them out to me almost as many!!I have read them out to my niece too many times to count!! and now that my niece has finally started to read, she will probably.....you get my drift!!!! (haha)
This is probably the most magical book you can give to your child....in a completely different class than Harry Potter - much more innocent and memorable!!!