Children still love Enid Blyton

Unfashionable they may be, but 36 years after her death a high proportion of Enid Blyton's 600 books are still in print and selling well, reports The Independent.

In fact Blyton was not quite such a reactionary as is often alleged. Although sex-roles tend to be stereotyped, the tomboy George in the Famous Five books is an honourable exception. Blyton also has a healthy distrust of authority figures - witness such disagreeable creations as Mr Plod, PC Goon and Dame Spankalot. Overall, though, it would be pointless to deny that Blyton's books are of conservative tendency. But so what? That's why children like them. Children are natural conservatives, just as teenagers are natural radicals.