Babbles about childhood Books: The Folk of the Faraway Tree & Up the Faraway Tree (SPOILERS)

HELLO EVERYONE 🌲

Welcome to the second part of my review of Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree series. You can read my first post 'Babbles about childhood Books: The Enchanted Wood & The Magic Faraway Tree' here. Today I am reviewing the final two books in the series. 

The Folk of the Faraway Tree (Book 3)

This portion of the post is an exciting one; as not only am I reviewing this book for my own enjoyment, but because I read this book for my first ever 'Buddy Read', with Rebecca (@GirlDaveReads)  who I met on Twitter. You can read her thoughts on this book here!

Let's get started, shall we? 

Praises

What I loved most about this book was the interaction between all the original characters, and the newcomer, the children's friend Connie. Connie couldn't be more different from the children; their cousin Rick who visited in the second book was much less rude and difficult to control, but nevertheless Connie does provide some good humour. Her and Mr Saucepan Man's constant bickering and insulting of each other is practically hysterical; miraculously Saucepan Man is no longer deaf when it comes to arguing with Connie! 

This book is lovely, because of the effect the children's friendship has on Connie. They teach her a lot of important lessons and she becomes more humble and a lot less defensive. Whilst the children are harsh on her and this creates some wonderfully tense scenes, Joe's speech to Connie in which he tells her "You've got bad manners and you don't do what you're told and people don't like you!" (page 58), allows Connie to realise that she must be nicer to the tree folk and more grateful for the children. The longer Connie spends with the children, the nicer she becomes and she manages to build a nice friendship with Moon-face and accept that Joe is only firm with her because he wants to teach her the right way. 

Also, despite being copy specific, this book had the best illustrations out of my set! 

This book is more emotional than the previous two; we see a very different, and hurt side to Mr Saucepan Man and we face the potential loss of the Faraway tree! Mr Saucepan's feeling of betrayal when he thinks the children do not want to meet his old mother is really moving, especially when he decides that he will sacrifice his friendship with everyone to defend her honour; "If you won't know my mother, you shan't know me!" (page 85). The somewhat heart-breaking description of the dying tree with "no fruit to be seen, only withering leaves" on page 156 is a serious scene in which the tree folk consider where they will live and what their lives will be like without the tree, but they are all then united in their heartbreak and determined to save the tree!  

Criticisms

MORE PLEASE!!!


For me this is definitely the 5 star book of the series and I really enjoyed reading it so many years after I first fell in love with it!! 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Up the Faraway Tree (Book 4)

WARNING - QUITE A NEGATIVE REVIEW!

Praises

There was a few, very limited things that I liked about this book...

Firstly, although short, the prose section from page 92 was really reminiscent of the other books and I enjoyed the chapter in which Santa Claus visits the Faraway Tree and is excited to use the slippery-slip; coming out "puffing and full of delight" (page 129). 

Also, I like that the very end line changes tense and Blyton directly addresses the children telling them "You just wait and see!" (page 130. It hints that their adventures continue despite no further books, which is a nice thought; it makes the ending less conclusive and allows for imaginations to run wild. 

Criticisms

Now it is time for me to say that for me the majority of this book... should never have been written! 

This book is super repetitive of the previous stories - it was published in 1985 supposedly as a stand alone, but it seems more of a revisit! For the second time in the series they get shut in a toy soldier fort, and a lot of the lands seem to be getting very similar(ideas seem to run a bit short). It became incredibly frustrating to be hurtled through the different lands; as soon as I got into one, it was over, with none of the dramatic exits that feature in the previous stories such as escaping on flying tables. 

Like I mentioned before, this was published in 1985 as an extension of the really popular series but for me this proves detrimental. The book has a completely different feel, especially due to the comic book layout, and it doesn't even feel like it was written by Blyton. It feels as though someone else has taken up the series and attempted to reinvigorate it, or Blyton has attempted to do so; but with the third installment being published in 1946 her writing style would naturally have altered and unfortunately leaving it 39 (!!!) years was just too long for the book to flow with the series in the same way. 

Finally, and the thing that I disliked most about this book was its lay out as a comic strip. All of the three previous titles are written as proper prose books and therefore this layout completely interrupted the flow of the series and was too different from the previous books. I'm not discrediting different layouts and styles of writing and comic strip type writing is more than legitimate, but it was not right for this series and it was not made clear anywhere (blurb etc) that this book had such a different style. I was really excited for this book given how I enjoyed the others and this new and random style absolutely ruined it for me. 

Having given the previous book in the series 5 stars, it feels so awful to give this one such a low rating - 2 stars - , but honesty is important and I really didn't like this book at all. 

⭐⭐

If you read this post, thank you so much! I hope that reviewing of my childhood favourites brings back fond memories and nostalgia for people and I hope that this little series will continue. Keeps your eyes peeled, as I have a few more nostalgic favourites on my TBR which I will likely review some of!!

**all quotes and page numbers mentioned in this post are in reference to Enid Blyton, 'The Magic Faraway Tree Collection' (DEAN, Egmont UK Ltd, London, 2019) ISBN 978-0-6035-7363-7