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| photo courtesy:amazon.com |
I bought this book when Cheeky was a year old. As a bookworm, I was keen to pass on my love for reading to my daughter.
So after she turned six and became a fairly goaod reader, I introduced her to Enid Blyton. Naughties Girl Again, was her first book ever. We decided that I will read it to her as a bedtime story. As the story progressed, I could see Cheeky was first intrigued and then hooked on it.
The collection has three stories and we read them all back to back.
Gist:
The story begins when Elizabeth Allen grows to love the school she first hated. She is looking forwards to coming to Whyteleaf boarding school. But this girl has a tendency to get into trouble even when she resolves not to. Will she stay away or find herself in a muddle again?
What works:
- It helped that the story is set in a British setting. Cheeky being a school girl herself could identify the school setting and dealing with naughty pupils.
- There is something endearing about the school series. It allows children to imagine them easily and enjoy them.
- She loved the whole boarding school setup with the school meeting and everything.
- The stories are very simple. There is a school and there are good children and bad children. Cheeky could relate to the friends sticking together and punishment for naughtiness bit.
- The stories have a "moral science" element to it. Blyton can be very preachy at times, rewarding good behaviour and condemning bad. But atleast at this age, the kids accept it without questioning it too much.
- The language is a bit archaic. Cheeky found it funny to see words like "jolly well" . Although, terribly British, such words are not common, certainly not something she uses.
- However, I realised that as a mature reader, I loved revisiting the story too. It was fun going through my earliest reading favourites and recall why I loved Blyton as a kid.
Next mission: To introduce the St Clares/Malory Towers books to my daughter.
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