Editorial: A tale of two authors

OPINION: It's a delightfully bookish coincidence. In the week that a movie based on the latest literary phenomenon to sweep through the ranks of our pre-teens and teens is set to hit our screens, we learn something astounding about the author many of the parents of the current generation of teens grew up with.

Of course, it's tough to compare Enid Blyton with American author Stephenie Meyer, whose four-book fantasy series about romance in a world that contains vampires and werewolves has become the biggest thing since Harry Potter.

But if there's a tendency on the part of some to look down their noses at Meyer's work – the second book in her series, New Moon, hits movie screens on Thursday and Timaru has not escaped the pre-release hype – the valuable comparison to be drawn with Blyton is that both got children and young people reading. And in Meyer's case, maybe even more so than in the case of Potter creator JK Rowling, that is no mean feat. There is so much else out there to entertain youngsters these days that reading is not necessarily a natural choice, and yet pre-teens and teens the world over have lapped up the books, with a healthy number of adults getting in on the act as well.

British author Blyton probably couldn't be said to be in the same ballpark as Meyer in terms of the age range her books are aimed at, but then she probably played an even more important role for many of the children learning to read at the time she was in the prime of her writing career.

Blyton's work appealed across a reasonable age range, from her Noddy series for young children to series like the Secret Seven and Famous Five.

Many young people down the years have cut their literary teeth on Blyton's writing and some youngsters continue to do so today.

So it was with surprise that her many fans will have learned this week that for three decades her work was banned from the British Broadcasting Corporation's programmes, because, according to a report in Britain's Daily Mail, it was described as "very small beer".

The report quoted an internal memo circulated in 1938 that suggested her stories weren't suitable subject matter because they were of limited literary value. It wasn't until some five years before her death that some of her work was used in a BBC programme.

Which just goes to show how wrong one can be. Blyton is surely one of the most successful authors for young people in history.

Both she and Meyer seem to have learned, and learned well, that the key is giving one's target audience what they want.

- © Fairfax NZ News