Stories for You (London: Dean & Son, 1966)

Enid Blyton (1897-1968) was an English children's book writer and literary empire. Blyton believed young readers need moral guidance, yet, like a number of Southern U.S. Republicans, refused to acknowledge how her world view is racist, sexist and classist. 

While walking on Commercial Drive yesterday I notice a copy of Stories for You in the Twoonie Bin outside the People's Co-op Bookstore. Of course I bought it -- not so much for its stories but for its illustrations, which I admire for their quiet intensity. As with every Blyton book I have seen, the illustrator is uncredited.

The images in this post are from the opening story in Stories for You -- "The Quiet Little Boy" -- which, as one might expect, is praiseworthy of the child who prefers contemplation over ruckus.

As a boy, I too preferred contemplation over ruckus. But I doubt my thoughts were as pure as Blyton hoped to make them. Same while reading those pages on Commercial Drive yesterday. You don't have to be Derek Jarman to note the homo-eros in these tales.

Because it was warm and sunny, I took up a bench at nearby Grandview Park and finished what I had started of "The Quiet Little Boy."

"That's an Enid Blyton book," said an older, English-accented woman who stopped to tell me what I knew.

"Yes," I said, and told her I was in it for the pictures.

"They're racist all the same," she said accusingly, and I agreed with her, for there are a couple of stories that picture golliwogs.

I went back to the book, but she stood unmoved.

"I don't understand why you would allow yourself to be seen reading something like this if you know it's racist," she said.

I looked around me. The park was busy, but no one appeared to be over forty, and therefore unlikely to have heard of Blyton. "If you're offended I'll put the book away."

"I'm offended," said the woman, so I put the book away and replaced it with the other book I purchased from the Townie Bin, Ethel Wilson's The Innocent Traveller (1949).

"Ethel Wilson's a racist, too!" said the woman. "She was South African and said racist things about Chinese people in Chinatown." 

"Yes," I said, "I am aware of that. Have you read her novel Swamp Angel?"

"No," she replied, "But I read an essay about her in a book of Vancouver photographs."

"Fred Herzog's photographs?"

"Yes."

"You're aware that Fred Herzog was once accused of racism?"

"There is nothing racist about his photos," she said defiantly.

"Did you enjoy the essay?"

"Yes, it was informative; I learned something."

"Thank you," I said, and returned to Wilson's Traveller.