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We will never tire of faries, elves and other magical creatures

The cover illustration from The Faraway Tree Collection: Three exciting stories in one, by UK author Enid Blyton

The cover illustration (uncredited, sadly) from The Faraway Tree Collection: Three exciting stories in one, by UK author Enid Blyton.

My friend Bibb is homeschooling her daughter and as such is even more vigilantly on the hunt for quality kids books than I am (who knew that was possible?) I try to get my hands on whatever she recommends… especially if it is out of print and/or by some exotic author that I haven’t heard of before.

Such is the case with British author Enid Blyton’s The Faraway Tree Collection, a series of three books about three siblings who move from London to the English countryside and spend their free time in the nearby forest which happens to be enchanted.

Which means that it is filled with magical creatures, that the animals can talk, and that the centerpiece is a massive tree called The Faraway Tree which leads up and up to a whole rotating series of different worlds, each with some kind of crazy theme (Birthday Land! The Land Of Take What You Want! Topsy Turvey Land!)

All kinds of interesting folk live in this tree, and our young heroes befriend just about all of them– especially a fairy named Silky (see above) and a round headed humanoid creature called Moon-Face. There is something of the Land of Oz in this universe with it’s psychedelic characters and situations, but it also feels very English, with tea happening like clockwork no matter where our friends find themselves. The first book was also written in 1939, which just seems like it was a time more conducive to kids being allowed to run off into the forest for days at a time and mothers taking new friends like Moon-Face and Saucepan Man in stride.

Which I’m sure is what I’d do if my three children, all under the age of 11, strolled into the house after an all-nighter with some weird old man covered in pots and pans. Oh no wait…

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