Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The Famous Five for a new generation

A recent article mentioned a new Famous Five animated series in which the original five are older and George is married to an Indian character named Ravi.

Too many fond memories of curling up with Enid Blyton books during summer holidays, so had to go find out.



Here's the low down:
Producers say the animated tales remain faithful to the themes of storytelling, mystery and adventure central to the original books but add a contemporary twist.

They feature 12-year-old Anglo-Indian Jo, short for Jyoti - a Hindi word meaning light - who, like her mother George, is a tomboy and the group's team leader.

Other characters include Allie, a 12-year-old Californian "shopaholic" who enjoys going out and getting "glammed up" but is packed off to the British countryside to live with her cousins.

Her mother was Anne in the Famous Five, a reluctant adventurer who has now become a successful art dealer. The team is completed by adventure junkie Max, who is 13-year-old Julian's son; Dylan, the 11-year-old son of Dick, and dog Timmy.
The entire article is here, more coverage here, and here's a video clip from the animated series. There's also a plan afoot for bringing back the original characters in a new series of novels.

About a year ago, I went looking here for these and other Enid Blyton novels for C, but I had no luck. Our local library had one title and I found some obscure Enid Blyton book on Amazon for the ridiculously expensive price of $90. Now his grandparents and aunt just send them over from India.

Illustration from telegraph.co.uk.

6 comments:

Bong Mom said...

Thanks for the articles Sujatha, so there is a Ravi and even a Jo...ahh I am seriously old now.

Just hope they don't go ahead and do a 21st century take on St. Claires or malory towers

Choxbox said...

yeah had read all this stuff.

its interesting to note the continued lack of enid blyton stuff outside india, incl. her home country.

Sujatha Bagal said...

Sandeepa, eeeks! I hope not either!

Chox, wonder why.

Anonymous said...

Her books are not much available in USA because of the criticisms that "she is a racist and a sexist"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A779781

It seems many of her reprints were altered to remove such negative stereotypes ...whatever that might mean
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enid_Blyton

Thank God, these thoughts never crossed my mind when I read and re-read these books in my childhood. I read some Noddy series this summer(along with the daughter) but don't know if they were reprinted as didn't see the Gollywog

Sandeepa

Nino's Mum said...

Whaaat?! They got married and had babies? Darn. somethings must just not evolve. must not evolve.
there was something a while ago about George being gay, just after the Brits said they were convinced Tintin was gay. Maybe they hadn't heard of Ravi either.
Read any yet?

Sujatha Bagal said...

Sandeepa, first of all, I don't know where my earlier response to you went. Sigh! Well, I just think Blyton was a product of her times. Not too forward-looking maybe.

NM, these are animated series. No books. Apparently Disney has acquired right, so perhapos they'll be shown here. My earlier post on this links to the article on Tintin being gay. Man, who knew or cared??