500 million books can't all be wrong

Enid Blyton's Famous Five get 21st-century makeover by Alison Flood in The Guardian, July 23rd, 2010. Enid Blyton was a wonderful British author writing from the 1930's onwards. Hugely prolific she has always been very popular with children and more than a few habitual and enthusiastic readers were most likely led down the reading path by Blyton. For all that, from the 1960s onwards there have been literary, academic and political critics complaining that her language was too dated, racist, classist, etc. For all the proto-controversies, expungement from school and public libraries and other rediculous manifestations of faux indignation, children have continued to love and read her books. There is nothing to put small minds in their place like persistent success.

Although Blyton died in 1968, she remains one of the most popular children's authors. Hodder sells more than half a million copies of the Famous Five books a year, while Blyton has sold more than 500m books and still features in the top 10 of most borrowed children's authors from public libraries.