The Trilogy That Started It All
In the wake of finding The Doorways Trilogy as free-to-read online texts, I decided to look up another favourite series of mine, one from my primary school years that I believe was my introduction to the fantasy genre in novel form. Well, technically, it's more like a chain of shorter stories, but perhaps that's why I like books with several arcs in them.
In Kindergarten, my wonderful teacher read us The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton. I loved the concept even as a small child, and when I found out there were sequels in the 3rd Grade, I snapped them up in Braille. I've always loved books, but my addiction to Enid Blyton's imagination began then. I never read The Enchanted Wood in full, but I did read The Magic Faraway Tree and The Folk of the Faraway Tree, and also The Adventures of the Wishing Chair, which is the first book in a similar series full of magical lands and children having adventures. My imagination used to run wild with these stories. In fact, I remember we once did a class exercise in 3rd Grade where each of us wrote a story about a land at the top of the Faraway Tree and the best were read out to the class afterward. Would you believe that the only blind girl in the class wrote about The Land of Colours? Yeah, one of my unfinished short stories from Junior Primary. My classmates did better.
Unfortunately, I cannot find the classic versions of these books for free. I have a little niece I would simply love to introduce to these books when she's old enough to have stories read to her, but I want the original versions. Most of the children had their names changed to more modern/less controversial variants--for those who don't know, the three siblings in the Faraway Tree series were named Jo, Bessie and Fanny, and I like them that way. Don't judge me. They don't have them on Audible, which makes me sad. And even if they did, they would record the updated versions with all the name-changes. I shall keep seeking out a place where I can get ETexts of the classic series though. That would be simpler for me.
Finally, the reason I told you all this. I tend to have random dreams when I have a lot of fantasy input sometimes. Last night, probably as a combination of this research and reading the latest chapter of TPATD, I had one of the randomest dreams for a while.
Me. And the Bikers. Climbing the Faraway Tree together. Remembering several of the characters quite vividly. Our destination? The Land of Sand, which everyone promptly gets lost in.
...I regret nothing.
In Kindergarten, my wonderful teacher read us The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton. I loved the concept even as a small child, and when I found out there were sequels in the 3rd Grade, I snapped them up in Braille. I've always loved books, but my addiction to Enid Blyton's imagination began then. I never read The Enchanted Wood in full, but I did read The Magic Faraway Tree and The Folk of the Faraway Tree, and also The Adventures of the Wishing Chair, which is the first book in a similar series full of magical lands and children having adventures. My imagination used to run wild with these stories. In fact, I remember we once did a class exercise in 3rd Grade where each of us wrote a story about a land at the top of the Faraway Tree and the best were read out to the class afterward. Would you believe that the only blind girl in the class wrote about The Land of Colours? Yeah, one of my unfinished short stories from Junior Primary. My classmates did better.
Unfortunately, I cannot find the classic versions of these books for free. I have a little niece I would simply love to introduce to these books when she's old enough to have stories read to her, but I want the original versions. Most of the children had their names changed to more modern/less controversial variants--for those who don't know, the three siblings in the Faraway Tree series were named Jo, Bessie and Fanny, and I like them that way. Don't judge me. They don't have them on Audible, which makes me sad. And even if they did, they would record the updated versions with all the name-changes. I shall keep seeking out a place where I can get ETexts of the classic series though. That would be simpler for me.
Finally, the reason I told you all this. I tend to have random dreams when I have a lot of fantasy input sometimes. Last night, probably as a combination of this research and reading the latest chapter of TPATD, I had one of the randomest dreams for a while.
Me. And the Bikers. Climbing the Faraway Tree together. Remembering several of the characters quite vividly. Our destination? The Land of Sand, which everyone promptly gets lost in.
...I regret nothing.